historic sites and landscapes the mitcham hills

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Historic sites and landscapes

The Mitcham HillsEdited by PAM SMITH, SUSAN PIDDOCK

and DONALD PATE

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Reports of the Hills Face Zone Cultural Heritage Project,Department of Archaeology, Flinders University.

Volume II • 2005

HHills Face ZoneHCULTURAL HERITAGE PROJECT

http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/archaeology/hfzchp/index1.htm

Traffic on the Old Belair Road, early 20th century. (Commissioners of the National Park. 1908.The National Park of South Australia. Commissioners of the National Park, Adelaide.)

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© P.A. Smith, S.Piddock and F.D. Pate 2005

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproducedby any process without written permission from the publisher.

First published 2005 by Kopi Books [www.milnwalker.com.au]

National Libraray of Australia cataloguing in-publication data:ISBN 0 975 7359-1-81. Cultural landscape. 2. Landscape archaeology. 3. Hills Face Zone, South Australia.I. Smith, Pamela, 1944- II. Piddock, Susan, 1963- III. Pate, F. Donald, 1959-

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This publication may be cited as: Smith, P.A., Piddock, S. and Pate, F.D. editors.2005 Historic Sites and Landscapes: The Mitcham Hills.

Hills Face Zone Cultural Heritage Project Reports, Department of Archaelology,Flinders University. Volume II. Kopi Books, Adelaide

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Book design by John KingsmillTypeset in Stone Print by Tabloid Pty Ltd, 85 Halifax Street, Adelaide, South Australia

Printed by Print Mint, 90 Gawler Place, Adelaide, South Australia

We wish to thank the many people who have contributed to the heritage surveys reported in this volume. The

authors of the individual reports in particular, have contributed their time, enthusiasm and considerable

knowledge to the project.

The City of Mitcham is also an Industry Partner and the Mitcham Local History Officer, Maggy Ragless

and volunteers from the Mitcham Heritage Research Centre shared their valuable expertise. Maggy assisted in

many ways and led the surveys of the Sturt Gorge, Shepherd’s Hill Recreation Park and the Blackwood Reserve.

Virginia Manson, a volunteer from the Mitcham Heritage Research Centre, assisted with these surveys.

Many volunteers from the wider community also gave their time and shared their knowledge.

A very special thank you is given to Janet Callen, Pam Tamblyn, Ron Tamblyn and Gordon de Rose.

Neil Stallard (Friends of the Belair Station) and Rick Irving (Mitcham Historical Society) spent a Saturday

afternoon exploring the Sleeps Hill Quarries and the railway line with Pam Smith.

This project would not have been possible without the support of volunteers from the Flinders University

Archaeology Society. It is not possible to list the names of the many volunteers, however, the support of the

following people deserves to be acknowledged: Aidan Ash stimulated ArchSoc members to join our surveys

during his year as President and Chris Bender led the survey team into the Sleeps Hill Quarries. The ‘regulars’

who gave up their Sundays to assist with surveys included Lothar Bender, Diane James, Ellen Stuart, Ken Preiss,

Margaret Preiss, Shoji Sinclair, Richard Smith and Ruth Jenkins.

Undergraduate Cultural Heritage Management and Historical Archaeology students completed the research

reports on which these reports are based. This project could never have been completed without their

collaboration and interest and their reports are listed in the bibliography for each relevant report. We thank,

in particular, Erinna Dennis who enthusiastically research the military history of Sturt Gorge, Bob Stone for

researching the Magpie Creek ruin (and pruning the olive trees), Diane James for her extensive research into the

Belair Railway Station, Matthew Rose for researching the proposal for a heritage trail in the Belair National Park

and Scott Chisholm for his study of the Tunnel Builders camps

The Mitcham Hills area is included on the Hills Face Zone Cultural Heritage GIS database that has been built

and managed by Robert Keane, Flinders University – a GIS consultant to this project.

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Contents

Contributors iv

Introduction v

REPORTS

1 The Hills Railway 1

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Janet Callan, Neil Stallard, Pam Smith and Diane James

2 The Government Farm and Belair National Park, 1840-1910 11

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Pam Tamblyn, Pam Smith, Scott Chisholm and Matthew Rose

3 Suburban bush merges in time and place: Shepherds Hill Recreation Park 27

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Maggy Ragless

4 Sleeps Hill Quarries 40

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Susan Piddock and Chris Bender

5 Magpie Creek Ruin, Sturt Gorge Recreation Park 47

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Robert Stone

6 Blackwood Reserve 52

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Virginia Manson

7 The Sturt Gorge 56

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Pam Smith, Erina Dennis and Gordon de Rose

References 62

ILLUSTRATIONS

Plates

I GIS map of the Mitcham Hills showing the sites identified by Heritage Survey

and the locations of the Heritage Survey Reports.

II A topographical map of the Mitcham Hills area by W.H. Edmunds with

dwellings identified. Edited from the topographical map, Glenelg to

Clarendon 1925. (Source: State Library of South Australia).

III Section map of the Mitcham Hills showing the release of Land Grants

during the nineteenth century. (Source: Maggy Ragless, Mitcham Local

History Officer).

IV A GIS generated map of the Mitcham Hills showing the topography and,

in particular, the slope of the land. (Source: Robert Keane, GIS consultant

to the HFZCHP).

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Contributors

Chris Bender, Honours student, Department of Archaeology,

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Flinders University, Adelaide

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Janet Callen, Schoolteacher and author, Eden Hills

Scott Chisholm, Undergraduate student, Department of Archaeology,

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Erinna Dennis, Undergraduate student, Department of Archaeology,

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○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Gordon de Rose, Friends of the Sturt Gorge Recreation Park, Bellevue Heights

Diane James, Undergraduate student, Department of Archaeology,

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Virginia Manson, Volunteer, Mitcham Heritage Research Centre,

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Mitcham

Donald Pate, Associate Professor and Chair, HFZCHP Committee,

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Department of Archaeology, Flinders University, Adelaide

Susan Piddock, Chief Investigator, HFZCHP, Department of Archaeology,

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○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Maggy Ragless, Loal History Officer, Mitcham Council, Mitcham

Matthew Rose, Undergraduate student, Department of Cultural Studies,

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○


Pam Smith, ARC Post Doctoral Fellow, Coordinator HFZCHP,

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Department of Archaeology, Flinders University, Adelaide

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Neil Stallard, Friends of the Belair Station, Belair

Robert Stone, Honours student, Department of Archaeology,

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○


○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Pam Tamblyn, Historian, Friends of the Belair National Park, Belair

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Space is transformed and envalued from the moment it enters the social andcultural scape; the cultural world familiarises physical space in a web of meaningsthat are not only signs of the time, but also signs of the place

David and Lourandos 1999:107

OW, AT THE START OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, many AustraliansN have already perceived an increasing temporal distance betweenthe present and the arrival of the first European colonists on the shoresof Australia. As this distance continues to increase, so the valueAustralians place on their colonial heritage will increase. In step withadvancing time, our environment is becoming increasingly urbanisedand polluted and there is growing public pressure on governments tovalue and protect the remnants of open space. Open space is frequently,however, also a heritage landscape, a complex of historical features andsites that provide a vital link between the present and the past (Beaudry1993:3). Heritage landscapes are also central to understandingcontemporary culture and provide a window into the past throughwhich we can understand how the past has shaped our present.

The identification and interpretation of the archaeological evidencefor nineteenth century colonisation and settlement patterns on thewestern face of the Mount Lofty Ranges, east of Adelaide, was anobjective of the Adelaide Hills Face Zone Cultural Heritage Project. Asignificant outcome of the project has been the identification of a relictcolonial landscape, possibly one of the best preserved historic landscapesrepresenting the era of eighteenth and nineteenth European global expansionand colonisation.

The people of South Australia are fortunate that the foresight ofearlier planners and in particular of Stuart Hart, the former StatePlanner, who introduced legislation to protect a significant landscapenow known as the Adelaide Hills Face Zone. The high public regard forthe rugged landscape along the western face of the ranges wasrecognised in 1962 by a recommendation of the MetropolitanDevelopment Plan (1962:12) that a Hills Face Zone, be established toprotect ‘… Adelaide’s greatest natural asset’. The plan stated:

It is very desirable, therefore, that the face of the ranges and the skyline as seenfrom the various points in the metropolitan area should retain a natural characterand should not be spoilt by small-scale domestic development

Metropolitan Development Plan 1962:77

Following the passing of the Planning and Development Act 1966 in1967 and a lively public debate, the Development Plan became anAuthorised Plan and facilitated the implementation of the Hills FaceZone regulations on December 16, 1971.

The primary objective of the Hills Face Zone legislation was, andcontinues to be, the preservation and enhancement of the naturalheritage values of the western face of the ranges and the provision of anatural backdrop to the city of Adelaide. This legislation has nowprotected the region from intensive urban, horticultural and agriculturaldevelopment for forty years.

A second and until now a little known consequence of the Hills FaceZone legislation is the protection of a relict1 colonial landscape and thepreservation of the region’s cultural heritage values. Through the HillsFace Zone Cultural Heritage Project many nineteenth and earlytwentieth century landscapes and structures have been identified anddocumented. The use of a cultural landscape methodology has meantthat not only have buildings and structures been recorded, but thelandscapes in which they are located have been interpreted and investedwith economic and social meanings – the farmhouse is no longer abuilding, it is a home situated in a landscape with fences, tracks andwells and was where people worked, interacted and raised families.

The area of the Hills Face Zone is defined by the western face of theMount Lofty Ranges and extends for approximately 90 kilometres fromSellicks Hill south of Adelaide to Gawler, north of Adelaide. The regionis all within the Adelaide metropolitan area (defined in the MetropolitanDevelopment Act 1993) and is defined in Figure 0.1. The central Hills

Figure 0.1 Map of the Hills Face Zone, showing parks and reserves.

Introduction

1 The UNESCO Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the WorldHeritage Convention, paragraph 36, defines cultural landscapes as representingthe ‘combined works of nature and of man’. Paragraph 37 states: ‘The term‘cultural landscape’ embraces a diversity of manifestations of the interactionbetween humankind and its natural environment’ (UNESCO 1999). Under theseguidelines (Appendix 1) the World Heritage categories are: (1) designedlandscapes; (2) organically evolved landscapes – i. Relict or fossil landscapes, or, ii.Continuing landscapes. (3) associative landscapes.

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Face Zone has distinct geomorphological characteristics thatdifferentiate it from the ranges to the north and south and, largely as aconsequence of this topography and its close proximity to the city, thesteep, fertile valleys of the central Hills Face Zone were the first to becolonized by horticulturalists and market gardeners. The northern andsouthern regions, where the terrain was not as steep, were colonized byfarmers engaged mainly in wool and crop production, with small areasof intensive horticulture such as vineyards and orchards.

The Hills Face Zone exists within the broader planning frameworkof the Metropolitan Planning Strategy, which identifies the Hills FaceZone as a major component of the Metropolitan Open Space System(MOSS).

MOSS is a strategy to develop a linked network of open space (asecond generation of parklands) in and around metropolitan Adelaide.The objectives of MOSS include:• a provision of a visual and scenic contrast to the built environment of

Adelaide;

• a provision of a buffer to separate and define developed ordevelopable segments of the metropolitan area;

• assistance in the conservation of natural or semi-natural habitats andsites of scientific, cultural or heritage interest;

• a provision of green corridors for movement of wildlife;

• accommodation of a range of passive and unstructured recreation andleisure areas; and

• a provision for the integration of stormwater management inassociation with recreation, aquifer recharge and water qualitymanagement.

The Hills Face Zone is the largest and most visible component ofMOSS, which maintains its aesthetic qualities through the applicationof strict development controls and the sweep of parks and public openspace within the Zone. The other components of MOSS are: majorwatercourses, metropolitan coastline, Adelaide city parklands andurban buffer areas

The system of parks and reserves found in the Hills Face Zoneprotects a diversity of ecosystems and rare and endangered species offlora and fauna. The parks and reserves also provide the people ofAdelaide with ready access to eco- and cultural-tourism destinations andpassive recreation opportunities adjacent to urban areas. Today, almost150 years after colonisation many of these landscapes also containsignificant cultural and heritage values and provide rare opportunitiesfor insights into many aspects of colonial life.

It is important that the cultural heritage values of the Hills FaceZone described in the following reports are taken into account in futureproposals for MOSS.

The Hills Face Zone Cultural Heritage Project

In 2002 Flinders University, the Australian Research Council and tenIndustry Partners (see acknowledgements) agreed to fund the Hills FaceZone Cultural Heritage Project. A multidisciplinary team includingarchaeologists, historians and geographers from Flinders University andfrom the wider community agreed to collaborate in the project. Overthree years members of the research team and volunteers haveundertaken 38 heritage surveys across the western face of the MountLofty Ranges. In addition, over 2,500 letters were posted to privatelandowners inviting them to contact us to record historic culturalimpacts on their property.

This volume contains the reports of six heritage surveys undertakenby the Hills Face Zone Cultural Heritage Project in the Mitcham Hillsarea. A further four volumes will present the reports of another 32

surveys. These reports contain the results of heritage surveys throughwhich we reconstructed the landscapes of nineteenth century marketgardeners, horticulturalists, miners, engineers, quarrymen andlabourers in the Adelaide hills have been reconstructed.

We are also offering readers an opportunity to glimpse the contextsin which people lived their lives during the first century followingEuropean colonisation and to obtain insights into how thecontemporary landscape was shaped by the past (Lowenthal 1985).

The aims of the project are to:• Document Indigenous2 and European cultural impacts on the

landscape of the Adelaide Hills Face Zone.• Identify and document sites of cultural heritage significance.• Recommend selected sites as cultural tourism destinations.

Carl Sauer, an American geographer, pioneered cultural landscapestudies and his definition of a cultural landscape is:

The cultural landscape is fashioned out of a natural landscape by a culture group.Culture is the agent, the natural area is the medium, the cultural landscape is theresult. Under the given influence of a given culture, itself changing through time,the landscape undergoes development, passing through phases…

Sauer 1929:46

This study of the cultural landscape of the Hills Face Zone is also thestudy of the colonists who created it. For as long as people, bothIndigenous and European, have lived in the region it has been constantlycreated and recreated as human needs and desires changed.

Landscape archaeology is a recent approach employed in historicaland indigenous archaeology that addresses the interaction of culturaland environmental variables associated with human landscape use. It isthis theoretical approach that has been used here (Yamin and Bescherer1996; Ucko and Layton 1999). This theoretical paradigm was derivedfrom earlier systems-based approaches to human landscape usedeveloped in relation to settlement pattern and human ecology studies(Willey 1953, 1956; Steward 1955). Whereas many earlier approaches tohuman landscape use emphasised the natural environment as a primemover, landscape archaeology focuses on the strong interactionsbetween culture (i.e. learned behaviour, norms) and naturalenvironments. In relation to historical archaeology, the cultural‘baggage’ that colonists bring with them has a major impact on how theyview, interpret, and use new territories.

Archaeological field survey methods were used to document theEuropean cultural impacts on the landscape (Redfrew and Bahn2004:62-89). Areas were identified as being a high priority for fieldwalking surveys based on preliminary research, and the thirty-eightpreliminary surveys to identify and record all historical cultural impactswere undertaken by the Project Team. These surveys were undertakenby volunteers from the Flinders University Archaeological Society,community organisations and interested individuals. All recordedinformation was entered into the Hills Face Zone Cultural Heritage GISDatabase.

In addition, other kinds of data were used to assist withinterpretation of material culture and to understand changing patternsof land use. These data included interviews, archival documents –including personal letters and diaries, aerial photographs and historicphotographs. Access to historic photographs has been essential and atthe commencement of the project we started a Hills Face Zone PhotoArchive on an Access database. This has been used to store all historicalphotographs as a reference collection. Photographs held by the

2 Consultations and surveys with the Traditional Owners have also beenundertaken and will be reported at a separate time and under directions fromthe Kaurna Heritage Committee.

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Mitcham Heritage Research Centre and theBurnside Local History Collection have beenscanned and included in the collection. It hadbeen hoped to complete the collection, but theTea Tree Gully Local History Collection and theWillunga National Trust had already scannedtheir historic photographs and it was decidedto allocate the resources elsewhere.

Aerial photographs have been central tothe analysis of spatial and temporal changes,although the 1936 set of aerial photographs isthe only set that is of direct relevance to theproject. We have been fortunate in being ableto access full sets of ortho-corrected aerialphotographs of the Hills Face Zone for eachdecade since the 1930s. As a consequence thesehave been accessible as additional GIS datalayers and have provide us with the ability tounderstand environmental and cultural changeduring the twentieth century.

The methods used by the project teamsare summarised in Figure 0.2, a flow chartshowing the flow of information into and fromthe project.

All data recorded in the field were enteredinto the Hills Face Zone Cultural Heritage Global Information Systems(GIS) Database. This database now holds approximately 900 data entrieswhich have been used to recreate the colonial landscape of the Hills FaceZone between 1836, the date of European colonisation, and 1936, SouthAustralia’s centenary and the date of the first aerial photographs. Theanalyses of spatial and temporal changes in land use patterns interpretedin this volume have been made using this database. The database hasalso made it possible to collate the historical data, including land tenureinformation, maps, photographs and bibliographies. The GIS databasehas provided us with the means to understand the ways in which thehistoric landscape has shaped the landscape we see today.

The colonists came to civilize a wild landscape. The fertile valleys ofthe hills with their permanent springs of water were essential inproviding for the needs of the colonists. They laboured hard to clear theslopes of large trees and to control the flow of creeks by lining them withdry stone walls. They built weirs and channelled the water into waterraces. By doing this they imposed European agricultural technologies onwhat they perceived as being a natural landscape, but in reality wasalready a cultural landscape, created by the dispossessed TraditionalOwners, the Kaurna people.

We have identified where they built their houses once the land wascleared, we know their preferred locations for planting crops, orchardsand market gardens. We have also been able to use the GIS database todevelop a predictive model of colonial settlement in the Mount LoftyRanges based on ‘Slope’ and ‘Aspect’ analyses. Temporal and spatialinterpretations are achieved by, first, colour coded cart tracks and roadsto indicate phases in time, for example, red is used for the 1836-1870phase and blue for the 1870-1900 phase, see Plate 1.

The data collection from private landowners is being continuouslycollated and may not become available until the database is handed overto the Industry Partners. The Hills Face Zone Cultural Heritage GISDatabase now contains layers of information that will be made accessiblein digital format through the Planning SA Heritage database links via theWorld Wide Web. The final analyses of all aspects of the data collected

will be published in the forthcoming book Valleys of Stone: Archaeologyand History of the Adelaide Hills Face and in academic publications.

The Mitcham Hills

In this volume the heritage survey reports of the seven major surveysundertaken in the Mitcham Hills have been brought together. Each areasurveyed was individual and the variation between the landscape typeswithin the one geographic zone was remarkable. The surveys wereundertaken with the assistance of volunteers from the FlindersUniversity Archaeology Society, the Mitcham Heritage Research Centreand interested individuals. Most of the archival research and oralhistory recording for individual projects was undertaken by FlindersUniversity Cultural Heritage Management students, and their reportsmade a valuable contribution to this volume. Individual student reportsare included in the bibliographies at the end of each chapter.

The survey area is defined in Plate 1, at the front of the volume. Plate1 also identified the location of each feature referred to in the text,including linear features. It was generated using the Hills Face ZoneCultural Heritage GIS database and a more comprehensive version ofthis map will be available through our website shortly. Plate 2 is atopographical map of the Mitcham Hills area by W.H. Edmunds.Edmunds’ maps are unique in that they provide landowner informationat the time the map was made and are an important source ofinformation. A section map of the Mitcham Hills showing the release ofLand Grants during the nineteenth century is shown in Plate 3. Again,through the efforts of Maggy Ragless, Mitcham Local History Officer,this map is provided us with a unique source of information about thesettlement dates in the survey area. Plate 4 is a GIS generated map of theMitcham Hills showing the topography and, in particular, the slope ofthe land. This map shows the sharp change in topography through themiddle of the Belair National Park. It also illustrates the steep north-facing slopes worked by the quarry men and through which the HillsRailway had to be constructed.

The first report is about the railway line that was built through the

Figure 0.2 Flow of information in the Hills Face Zone Cultural Heritage Project.

➟➟

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➟➟

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➟ ➟

Consultation withstakeholders

Industry Partners,community organizations

and stakeholders

Backgroundinformation

Archives, libraries oralhistories and so on

Archaeological surveys ofthe HFZ landscape

Archaeological staff andstudents, Flinders

University; stakeholdersSite surveys and managementstrategies for selected sites

of heritage significance

Cultural Heritage managementstaff and students, FlindersUniversity; stakeholders

Development of cultural tourismstrategies for heritage sites with

some tourism potential

Cultural Tourism staff andstudents, Flinders University;

stakeholders

ADELAIDE HILLS FACE ZONE CULTURAL HERITAGE STUDY

GIS data base Reports to Industry partners Final Report Research papers

viii

Adelaide Hills in the early 1880s. This is regarded as more of the mostchallenging engineering feats in Australia during the nineteenth century.Although a great deal has now changed along the route of the railway,the surveys identified a number of well-preserved structures andartefacts. The old tunnels and the Belair Railway Station remain andare well known. Less known is the evidence of the many smallerstructures along the line, such as the explosives magazine, the relictof a former bridge, faint evidence of the Hoffman brick kiln and the earlystation infrastructure.

This report and Report 2, The Government Farm and Belair NationalPark, 1840-1910, share overlapping interests, as the railway passesthrough the park. The survey of the camps where the men who built therailway tunnels lived is reported here. The Belair Park report is, however,primarily an account of the history and historical archaeology of one ofAustralia’s most significant National Parks. It is also shares in the historyof a former Governor’s residence and many facets of colonial history thatshaped the park as we know it today.

Maggy Ragless, Mitcham Local History Officer, brings a personalnote to her report on the Shepherd’s Hill Recreation Park, as muchof the land was her family’s property. Maggy’s insights into the locationsof sites is based on information provided by her father and althoughlittle archaeological evidence of these sites remain, her knowledgeis able to piece together threads of evidence to recreate the historyof the landscape.

The fourth report is about the Sleeps Hill Quarry and, as with theBelair National Park, there is a strong relationship between this quarryand the railway line through the hills. Stone from the Mitcham Quarrieson the northern and western face of the Hills Face Zone was used tobuild many of Adelaide’s early homes and public buildings; it was alsoused for roads, the railway and the breakwater at Outer Harbour. Thereare reported to be sixty-four quarries in the Mitcham Council area theSleeps Hill Quarry was selected for a full survey and to illustrate onequarry typical of those found in the Mitcham Hills.

Two smaller studies were undertaken in the catchment of theMagpie Creek. Robert Stone investigated the ruin of a cottage with anunusual architectural design and his report on the ruin is presented inReport 5, The Magpie Creek Ruin. Virginia Manson also brought apersonal note to her research, Report 6, The Blackwood Reserve andMagpie Creek, as the only evidence of a nineteenth century house hadbeen occupied by her great-grandparents. This report also provides aglimpse of the early slaughter yard in Blackwood and the days whencattle were unloaded at the Blackwood Railway Station.

The survey of the Sturt Gorge proved to be surprisingly eventful. Thefirst field survey identified many depressions in the ground and whenthe area was researched a previously undocumented military history wasrevealed. This was entirely due to Gordon de Rose, whose father hadbeen allocated the gorge as a soldier-settler farm at the end of World WarI. Gordon has lived in the area all of his life and willingly shared hisknowledge with the research team to reconstruct spatial and temporalchanges and to reconstruct a fascinating historic landscape.

The authors of this volume take this opportunity to thank ourIndustry Partners, the many volunteers who participated in the projectand the many individuals who contributed. This has been a trulymultidisciplinary project with wide community collaboration, it hascontributed to our understandings of our colonial heritage and willcontribute to future planning of the Adelaide Hills Face Zone.

Pam Smith, PhDCo-ordinator, Hills Face Zone Cultural Heritage Project3 3 Further information about the Adelaide Hills Face Zone is available on the Hills

Face Zone Cultural Heritage Project website: http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/archaeology/hfzchp/index1.htm

1 The Hills RailwayJanet Callan, Neil Stallard, Pam Smith and Diane James

HE CONSTRUCTION of the first railway lineTthrough the Adelaide Hills in the early1880s is regarded as one of the morechallenging engineering feats in the history ofAustralia and for this reason, the Hills Lineremained the last major railway built inAustralia for several decades. Prior to theconstruction of the railway, unsealed ormacadam roads were the only means by whichthe colonists could access the new towns in therural regions of the state. The rapid expansionof settlement necessitated the building of morerailways to take produce to the ports and fortransporting passengers, mail, dailynewspapers and perishable goods (Martin1996:167-168). The first single track railwaythrough the Hills went to Nairne, but wasalmost immediately extended to MurrayBridge and the Victorian border.

Nineteenth and early twentieth centuryevidence of the Adelaide Hills railway line wasdocumented from the Mitcham Station in theAdelaide foothills, to the Nalawort siding, justbeyond the eastern boundary of the BelairNational Park. Apart from a short section ofthe line between Eden Hills and Belair, muchof the railway line through the western face ofthe Adelaide Hills has been protected fromurban development by the Hills Face Zonelegislation. Archaeological and historicalstudies of railway line development are rareand the heritage survey and archival researchof this railway has demonstrated howhistorical archaeology can document a linearfeature, such as a railway, across a diversecultural landscape and bring to life the storiesabout those who built the line and those whoused it.

This study has provided insights into thelives of the people who travelled on the train,such as those who caught the ‘picnic’ train toenjoy the Belair National Park. It also explainsthe roles of the men working along the line,such as the signal men who manually operatedthe signals at the crossings and stations.Technological advances and the high incidenceof accidents influenced many of the changesduring the first fifty years of the railway andthese were documented through the fieldsurveys and research projects. The scantremains of the viaduct that was oncesuspended above the Watiparinga Valley wererecorded and a search for evidence of thetunnels that were replaced by bridges when

the steam trains became too large for thetunnels was conducted. The steam trains alsohad to be supplied with both permanent waterand coal for their fire boxes and evidence offacilities for each of these, together with manyother features, were identified and aredescribed below.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Adelaide was to be linked to Melbourneby rail. After years of discussion and tendifferent surveys the Honourable J.G. Ramsay,Commissioner of Public Works, finallyintroduced a bill into Parliament in 1878.It proposed a route (Figure 1.1) that would:

leave Adelaide by the West Parklands,Goodwood, Goodwood Park, Unley Park,Old Mitcham, Clapham, Mitcham Lawn nearSpringbank, to the hills… thence by Belairand along the north side of Government Farm…as far as Nairne via Crafers, Aldgate Pump,Bridgewater, and Balhannah.

Aeuckens 1989

The first stage, from Adelaide to Nairne,was the greatest engineering feat yetattempted in the colony. There would be eighttunnels totalling 1550 yards in length,numerous cuttings, and two viaducts crossinggullies at Eden Hills. The longest embankmentwas 800 feet long and 60 feet high and 52,000cubic yards of rock would need to be removed

in the cuttings. Culverts, made of concrete,would go through the embankments, thelongest of 300 feet going through theembankment after tunnel No.6. Stone forballast for the line was to be taken from thequarry near Sleeps Hill. Bricks to line thetunnels would be produced at brickworksestablished along the line (refer to Plate 1,showing the quarries). An article in Speakers’Corner recounted that the construction of theline was:

… labour intensive with up to a thousand menworking at any one time… Cuttings and tunnelswere blasted with dynamite, the resulting rubbleand stone being picked out and shovelled intowheelbarrows, horse drawn carts, or hand pushedrail trucks. It was then used to build walls ofembankments or buildings and as fill. Ballastfor the tracks was transported by railway truckfrom the quarry at Sleeps Hill and red-gum wascut from trees on the nearby hills for sleepers.

Hills Railway Centenary 1883-1982,

1983 Speakers’ Corner 2:1

The cost of the line was estimated at£20,000 a mile excluding the cost of lines,station buildings, and rolling stock. Railsprovided by the Government were of 61 lbWest Cumberland steel. The tender of Swanand Walker was accepted and work began inMay 1879. Construction camps wereestablished along the route and included theSix Mile Camp (near Lynton), Nine Mile

Figure 1.1 Route of South Line 1936. Dotted line route including original tunnels 1 and 2.SOURCE Callaghan 1991:228

2 The Mitcham Hills

Figure 1.3 The replacement no.2 tunnel, 1918 (the Sleeps HillTunnel) showing the method of tunnel construction.

SOURCE Mortlock Library, reference no. B19407

Figure 1.2 Construction of the Sleeps’ Hill Tunnels, 1919.SOURCE Mortlock Collection of South Australiana

Camp, near Brick Siding, Eleven Mile Camp(near Blackwood), and Fourteen Mile Camp(Foster’s Corner), Sixteen Mile Camp (LongGully) and Seventeen Mile Camp wereadjacent to the present eastern boundary ofthe Belair National Park. Difficulties withestablishing these railway camps, and theindustrial action which plagued theconstruction of the line is described inCallaghan 1991:12.

The third tunnel near Eden Hills was thefirst to be completed. As with all the tunnels itwas 16 feet 6 inches high and 15 feet wide andhad been excavated from the roof down toavoid the use of staging (Figure 1.2 and 1.3). Itwas the first tunnel in South Australia and tocelebrate the achievement a banquet was heldinside the tunnel, attended by the Governor,Sir William Jervois, and some members ofParliament.

In March 1883 the first stage of the line,from Adelaide to Nairne, was opened. Therewere four similar Class One stone stations,Mitcham, Blackwood, Mt Lofty, and Aldgate.Prior to the opening Mitcham Station wasreferred to as Lower Mitcham, Blackwood asBelair, and Mt Lofty as Crafers Station. Thenames were changed just before the opening.

The line to Bordertown opened in 1886 andfrom January 1887 it was possible to go byintercolonial train from Adelaide toMelbourne.

The extent of the railway considered inthis report is within the Hills Face Zone andextends from the Mitcham Station to the

Nalawort Siding. TheMitcham Station, 8.5 kmfrom the city, and namedafter a town in Surrey, wasthe first Class One stonestation on the line. Therewas a Station Master’sresidence attached to thebuilding and a signal cabinstood on the Adelaide endof the platform. Thestation housed the firstMitcham telegraph officeand a post office operatedfrom here, the mail beingsorted as the train travelledbetween Adelaide andMitcham.

A wooden platformwas established betweenthe station building andthe station yard and waswell trodden by schoolchildren attending thenearby Mitcham PublicSchool, which had openedin 1880. Free train passeshad been issued forchildren living ‘outside theschool radius.’ This was for

‘children not exceeding nine years of age twomiles radius, for those exceeding nine and notexceeding thirteen, three miles’ (SouthAustralian Railways GRG 42/98).

There were strict instructions concerningteams of horses standing in station yards. Theyneeded to be well secured lest a nervous horse,alarmed at the clanking and hissing of alocomotive, lurched, causing havoc. The largestation precincts at Mitcham were veryconvenient for horse drawn vehicles withplenty of turning space for the long bullockteams. The area is now used as a car park.

The station yard was a busy one. A doubletrack operated from the city from 1908 and aspur line linked Mitcham to Clapham toseparate the hills traffic from the suburbantrains. From 1909 there was a separate line toSleeps Hill Quarries and loaded quarry trucksrattled through Mitcham Station. By 1915 adouble line went to Sleeps Hill (refer to thereport, the Sleeps Hill Quarry, this volume).Increased traffic necessitated the doubling ofthe line from Adelaide and a second signal boxand nearby toilet was constructed at theBlackwood end of the platform. There was anopen crossing at each end of the station yard.This was simplified in 1921 when the BelairRoad was rerouted and one crossing wasshifted to Wattlebury Ave. For many years awood yard operated from the station, malleeroots being brought by rail. Wood yards were afeature of many stations who provided woodfor domestic consumption. Limestone blocksfrom the South East were sawn intomanageable pieces and were also transportedalong the line during the 1950s and 1960s. A

3The Hills Railway

Figure 1.4 Bridge at Sleeps Hill 1953. Photographer Douglas Colquhoun.SOURCE Courtesy Coromandel Valley and Districts Branch of the National Trust of South Australia

feature of railway stations was the advertisingon the galvanised fences and was encouragedby the South Australian Railways from 1897(South Australian Railways GRG 42 Series 98Circular 904). During World War II Mitchamwas one of the stations providing a collectionpoint for homing pigeons, a communicationfacility used by the army.

When Commissioner Webb was appointedin the 1920s locomotives larger than had everbeen used in South Australia, and that couldpull massive loads, were introduced. Thisinvolved changes at stations and at this timethe Annual Railways Garden Competition wasintroduced. Mitcham was several times thewinner of this prestigious award. Nellie’sGarden at Mitcham reminds us of thistradition. It was established in memory ofNellie Ellis, whose husband was StationMaster 1956-77. Nellie’s ashes were scatteredin the garden and a plaque has been placedthere to commemorate her.

The next station on the line wasBlythewood, named after Sir Arthur Blyth, aMinister of the Crown who lived in MitchamVillage. Blythewood Road continued over theline so this was another open crossing, thestopping place being on the hills side of thecrossing. When Belair Road was rerouted aconcrete platform was erected over thecrossing and passengers could cross the trackvia a subway. The station became known asTorrens Park.

In 1908 a spur line from Mitcham toClapham was created, to separate the hillsfrom the plains traffic. Clapham was for a timethe end of the suburban line, the stopping

place on Spring Bank Road consisting of a runaround loop, with a raised platform andsmall water tank. The suburban train becameknown as the ‘Clapham Dodger’. The stationwas placed on the main line in 1915. A row ofgum trees on the west side indicates the site ofthe former platform. The bridge overSpringbank Road, built in 1924, eased thetraffic situation at Clapham. This station wasclosed in the 1990s.

The railway crossing at Barrett Road wasan open crossing and the Crossing Keeper’shouse still stands on the north west corner. Atnight the Keeper came out with a red lanternto indicate the approach of a train and duringthe day a red flag was used. The station ofLynton opened in the 1950s about the timewhen Sleeps Hill ceased to be used. Solidplatforms at Lynton replaced wooden ones in1963. On the corner of Hogarth Road andSleeps Hill Drive the remains of a bridge arevisible (Figure 1.4). This bridge straddled theline and was used by horse drawn and motortraffic to access Sleeps Hill Quarries.

Sleeps Hill was named after Samual Sleepwho owned land in the area. A quarryproviding ballast for the hills railway operatedin the 1880s in the valley north of the SleepsHill Quarries. Mitcham Quarry siding wasconnected to the main line at both ends in1884, this siding, near the current LyntonStation, being removed in 1897. Additionalsidings went into the quarry. Quarry trafficwas incorporated into the Sleeps Hill Siding in1909 (Figure 1.5). From 1916 following theclosure of a quarry at Burra, the Sleeps HillQuarries became a major source of ballast for

the railways. Stone was brought down the hillin hopper trucks to a crusher and grader andballast was gravitated into railway trucksfrom the storage bins adjacent to the railwayline, Figure 1.6 (see also Sleeps Hill Quarry,this volume). Work at the quarries ceased inthe 1950s. A private quarry near the mouthof former tunnel No. 1 was also served by asiding from the Sleeps Hill yard and closed inthe 1950s.

The Sleeps Hill platform became theend of the suburban line for a short period.The signal cabin north of the Sleeps Hillplatform operated from 1914 until 1926,controlling access into the quarries. Residentsremember by the 1940s stopping the train atSleeps Hill using a circular disc, which whenrotated at right angles to the line, indicated tothe driver to stop the train. In the vicinityof the quarry is a flat area with four candlepines at one end. There were two cottages anda tennis court here until the 1960s, and thetrain stopped regularly to let down passengersafter the platform had been closed.

The duplication of the line from Adelaidereached Eden Hills by 1919. This broughtabout the replacement of the viaducts andthe rerouting of the line to the east, throughthe new, double Sleeps Hill Tunnel thatreplaced two former tunnels. These twotunnels and a former cutting can be foundnear Railway Terrace, Grandview Drive, andHare Terrace, Panorama.

The No. 2 tunnel, the tunnel nearest toSleeps Hill, played a less sensational roleduring World War II as a arsenal for shells andammunition (Carroll 1947:10).1 Tunnel no. 1was used as a mushroom farm between 1965and 1991 (Among Ourselves 1982:19) andtunnel No. 2 is currently used as a wine store.

The viaducts, approached through themouth of the long tunnel No. 2, wereimported from the Edgemoor Iron Companyof Delaware, USA. They were designed byCaptain Charles Shaler Smith, who followedthe modern method for constructing bridgeson curves, using cross braces where the strainwas greatest thus avoiding the need for extraconcrete pillars. They crossed two deep gullieswith creeks cascading beneath. The firstbridge was 360 long and 96 feet high, thesecond one 260 feet long and 72 feet high(Callaghan 1991:13). A dry stone wall inWatiparinga Reserve on the east side of theline is evidence of some of the infrastructureneeded to build the viaducts. Nine hundredmen, using 100 horses, were employed duringthe construction of the viaduct. Heavier

4 The Mitcham Hills

Figure 1.5 Clapham and Sleeps Hill railway yards. SOURCE Callaghan 1991:239

Figure 1.6 The Sleeps Hill storage bins and railway siding c.1910.SOURCE Coromandel Valley and Districts Branch of the National Trust of South Australia

1 This is only a short distance from the Sturt Gorgewhere the Army had establish a defence positionagainst invasion from the south and from StVincent’s Gulf. See the report, The Sturt Gorge,this volume.

locomotives, and longer trains necessitateddifferent structures and the line was reroutedand the viaducts were dismantled in 1919.

Another feature of railway engineering arethe tunnel ventilators, evident in the CouncilReserve above the Sleeps Hill Tunnel, andabove National Park tunnel, as round discs.The intense heat and smoke emitted in a longtunnel was suffocating for engine drivers andcrew. The clearance of eleven inches above thefunnel and the top of the tunnel left little roomfor gases to escape. The situation wasimproved when these ventilation shafts weredrilled above the top of some tunnels toprovide an outlet for steam and smoke.

Eden Railway Station opened in 1912when the required number of twelve citybound workers needed to travel to the city.Before 1912 passengers had been known tothrow parcels from the carriage windows tofamily members, when the train was on theslow up hill haul. Then they did not have to lugthem along the muddy bush track linkingEden to Blackwood. Land agents encourageddevelopment in the area by issuing free railpasses, first class passes for three years if ahouse exceeding £1000 in value was builtwithin twelve months, and second class passesif a house worth £500 was built.

At the Adelaide end of the Station Yard

was an uphill siding for runaway trucks. If acity bound train became out of control on thesteep downhill slope the engine driver wouldgive three long blasts on his whistle, repeatedat intervals. The signal man would then resetthe switches running to the runaway siding.The steep adverse gradient brought the trainto a stand still. This was designed to preventpossible disaster on the viaducts.

Electric signalling was introduced as faras Eden with the extension of the double trackin 1919. The signal cabin at Eden also houseda ticket office that closed in 1984 and thebuilding was demolished. The pathway to theticket office is now under plants. A turntablefor turning locomotives and single railcars wassituated on the south west section of the yard,and operated until 1934. Twenty years later itwas removed and the space became a car park.Three railway cottages originally for railwayemployees still stand above the station on theeastern side. A wooden bridge over the railwayfrom Willunga Street was constructed in 1914and replaced by the present structure in 1964.From 1948 the Eden station became known asEden Hills. Tunnel No. 3, at the end of theEden Hills yard, was doubled in 1928 whenwork on the double track continued. A secondhigher tunnel was bored along side the first,higher to allow for possible electrification ofthe line and to accommodate bigger loads.

Immediately south of tunnel No. 3 wasBrick Siding. It served the brick works, firstopened under the auspices of Walker andSwan, who had won the tender to constructthe line (Figure 1.11).

The brickworks supplied bricks for tunnelconstruction, the first bricks being made fromclay excavated from nearby railway cuttings.The site was ideal with first class clay on hand,water nearby, and timber for fuel readilyavailable. Here the first Hofffman Kiln inSouth Australia had reduced the cost of bricksfrom 8/6 per thousand to 2/- per thousand.15,000 bricks could be produced per day(Figure 1.12). The works became the City andSuburban Brickmaking Company and by 1897the Metropolitan Brickworks was operatingfrom the site exporting bricks as far asMelbourne. The brickworks closed after WorldWar II2.

A report in the Register described a visit tothe Brickworks:

5The Hills Railway

Figure 1.7 Sleeps Hill Railway Siding c.1930s. SOURCE Neil Stallard

Figure 1.8 Southern approach to the new tunnel from point of deviation 1918.SOURCE Coromandel Valley and Districts Branch of the National Trust of South Australia

Figure 1.9 Building of viaduct 1879. SOURCE Mrs Tilby, SLSA Photographic section 12665

2 The introduction of the Hoffman kiln forced thestandard brick size to change from the Englishstandard to the European standard, with wide-ranging consequences for the construction industry(Smith and Smith 2005).

The bricks are made from the clay rock taken out ofthe quarry within a few yards of the yard and thismaterial is carted direct to the disintegrators whereit undergoes sharp discipline before it is carried onto the elevators in its pulverized state where it istempered. It then goes into the faucet machine andis pressed horizontally in a cylindrical mould thenperpendicularly in the same appliance. Leaving thisit goes to the Gilles Press where each brick sustainsa pressure of 20 to 30 tons. The brick is passedthrough into a Hoffman kiln where it undergoes theordeal of fire for about fourteen to eighteen days.The company turn out 15000 of these bricks in aday of 8 hours and thirty hands are employed…. Thebricks have a considerably close texture … they areconsiderably heavier than ordinary bricks owingpartly to their being larger but mainly to theirgreater density.

Register, 14 April 1886

In the article “Retirement From theRailways” (The Mail June 19, 1926 p.11) MrGeorge Pattison, who had worked for 47 yearsin the Railways, reported that he had workedon the construction of the line from Adelaideto Melbourne. He claimed that over ninemillion bricks were used in the tunnels, andthat he had laid half of them. Mr Pattisonrecalled Blackwood as a tent village, where helived long enough to see a small town develop.Three of his children were born in the tent.

The level crossing at Brighton Paradebecame a stopping place in the time ofCommissioner Webb in the 1920s. This laterbecame known as ‘Coromandel’, named afterthe nearby suburb which in turn was namedafter the ship Coromandel. Many levelcrossings such as this became stopping placeswith step down platforms at this time.

The double line reached as far asBlackwood in 1928. The tunnel housing asingle track under Coromandel Parade was atthis time replaced by a bridge. The brickswhich lined the tunnel are still visible on oneside of the cutting. The spans of this bridgecame from a railway bridge previously crossingCox’s Creek near Bridgewater.

Blackwood was a Class One Station,similar to Mitcham. The building included aStation Master’s Residence, and at one stage ataproom, where drink could be obtained.Blackwood Station also included a Post Officeand Telegraph station. In the 1890s mail wastransferred to a horse drawn mail coach andthence transported to surrounding districtsincluding Cherry Gardens, Coromandel Valley,and Clarendon. The horses were kept on the

6 The Mitcham Hills

Figure 1.11 Railway siding Metropolitan Brickworks site. Photographer A.D. Pregrave 1965.SOURCE Coromandel Valley and Districts Branch of the National Trust of South Australia).

Figure 1.10 Eden Hills signal cabin and ticket office 1953. Photographer Douglas Colquhoun.SOURCE Coromandel Valley and Districts Branch of the National Trust of South Australia

Figure 1.12 Metropolitan Brickworks, Eden Hills 1940s. SOURCE Mitcham Local History Collection

embankment overlooking the current busstop. Employees were housed in railwaycottages still standing at the north west endof the yard and the Crossing Keeper’s Housestood until the 1960s near the current levelcrossing. Here a single pear tree marks the site.Wig-wags were installed at the crossing in the1920s. Blackwood was considered a ruralstation and stock yards were situated wherethe recycling depot is today.

A goods shed was erected in 1911 andin 1914 a crane was built for loading trucks.The water tank, used by steam locomotives,was filled from a pipe that brought water fromthe railway dam in the Belair National Park.The tank still stands, with an advertisementfor Amgoorie Tea just visible on the side.A rail track led to the tank and nearby ashpit where ashes from steam trains could bedeposited. Produce from local orchards wastransported by rail from the nearby ColdStores from 1918. The Cold Stores weredestroyed by fire in 2003.

In the Belair National Park, the railwaydam belonged to the South AustralianRailways until March 18, 1965, when thethree acres that included the dam werededicated to the park. A view of the damshowing the pump house and foot valve isshown in Figure 1.14 (see also the report TheGovernment Farm and Belair National Park,1840-1910, this volume).

The Belair Road Crossing (now Glenalta)was an open crossing. When the telephone(1911) was installed in the Crossing Keeper’sHouse, connecting it to Blackwood and BelairStations, the Crossing Keeper no longer had torely so heavily on timetables to predict whenthe next train would come. The nearby BelairHotel was established as Blackwood Inn in1868. The licensee during the construction ofthe line was Edward Easther.

One of the greatest tragedies in SouthAustralian railway history occurred late on adrizzly afternoon in January 1928 when thedouble line was being extended to Belair. Itwas near Overway Bridge Station (now Pinera)on Main Road near Belair. Six men wereburied in a landslide when the tunnel No. 5,was being replaced by a bridge. Conditionswere difficult for rescuers who worked bythe light of hurricane lamps in wind and rain.The scene of the accident was captured on filmand is reproduced in Figure 1.15. The pressreported that the rescue attempt took placein “a fog which clothed the scene of death aswith a mantle of softness.” Robert Lafferty ofCoromandel Valley was one of the men killed.

7

Figure 1.13 Bridge replacing the tunnel under Coromandel Parade 1928.SOURCE Coromandel Valley and Districts Branch of the National Trust of South Australia

Figure 1.14 Railway dam in the Belair National Park. SOURCE Commissioners of the Park 1908

The Hills Railway

The press goes on to report that he:

… chatted with the ambulance men but seemedunable to say anything about his sensations duringhis terrible experience. However his injuries wereso serious that he died in the hospital at 4.10 am.… few people connected with the work of rescuingthe entombed men will forget the night of tragedy.Death, storm, and earth seem to mingle in afantastic nightmare.”

The Advertiser, 2 February 1928

Many visitors to the Belair National Parkwere familiar with the Belair Railway Station,the first of the three stations the public used toaccess the park. The park was so popular in theearly twentieth century that there was a ‘picnictrain’ and horse drawn trolleys carried peoplefrom the station into the park.

The station buildings date from theopening of the railway and, as the station wasa secondary station, the buildings were oftimber and were the only timber buildingsalong the line (Callaghan 1992:241-2). In 1883the ticket office, telegraph office and signal boxwere constructed along side the railway line. In1886 the wooden platform for passengers touse when they stepped off the train, was built.It is possible that the shelter shed, Figure 1.16,was extended several times, the dates able tobe identified were 1894, 1908-09 and 1925.

In 1908 the wooden platform was replacedby the current platform and in 1920 the officewas removed and a brick toilet was builtbehind the original old ticket office and freightroom. The line was upgraded to a double trackin 1925 and the station office was built fromconcrete. The former good siding and theturntable were removed in 1977 and the

signals were changed to those used today.Foster’s Corner is the large right hand

bend after the Belair Station and isremembered as a bend where several accidentsand derailments occurred. It was the site ofthe Fourteen Mile Camp and close to oneof the largest embankments along the line.This embankment has a maximum heightof 79 feet and labourers moved 63,000 cubicfeet of earth during its construction, withmost of the fill coming from a nearby quarryalong Sheoak Road (see Plate 1). The concreteculvert through the embankment is nowknown as Echo Tunnel. From here the lineenters tunnel No. 6 and exits into the valleyformed by the Minno and Tarma Creeks.

National Park Siding, simply a smallwooden stepping down area, was opened bypublic request in 1936. It was 15 m 40 chains(25.5k m) from Adelaide and catered fornumerous picnic visitors to the park. TheSixteen Mile Camp was situated near LongGully Station and the entrance to tunnel No. 7is to the east, at the end of the Long GullyYard. Long Gully Station opened in 1912 andwas originally known as Minno siding, a smallsiding that closed in 1989. It was near here,during tunnel construction in 1880, thatworker William Bell was murdered after anargument in one of the tents. An inquest washeld and the incident is reported in the articleentitled “Tragedy on the Nairne Railway” inFrearson’s Weekly, November 6, 1880 (see thereport The Government Farm and BelairNational Park, 1840-1910, this volume).

A happier event is recorded in the Birthssection of The Advertiser, March 12, 1883 andprovides an alternative insight into camp life.Life in the navvies’ camps is known to havebeen rough, but this birth notice indicates thatthere were families living in the camps:

FOWLER. – On the 2nd March, at the 16 MileCamp, Nairne Railway, the wife of Alex. Fowler,of a son. Both doing well. Home papers please copy.

The Nalawort Siding, on the boundaryof the Hills Face Zone at 17 m 32 chains fromAdelaide, was a stopping place for ‘rail motors’from Mt Pleasant for some years and providedaccess to the Belair School for children livingin the vicinity. No trace of this platformremains. Rosemary Magarey of CoromandelValley related how her mother, Mrs Lois Halls,agitated for this stopping place so that herfamily could attend the school. The area was a

8 The Mitcham Hills

Figure 1.15 Work at the accident site, Overway Bridge, Belair, 1928.SOURCE Coromandel Valley and Districts Branch of the National Trust of South Australia

Figure 1.16 The Belair Railway Station (n.d).SOURCE Tanya Lehman Postcard Collection

Figure 1.17 Nalawort siding between Long Gully and Upper Sturt.SOURCE Coromandel Valley and Districts Branch

of the National Trust of South Australia

small square earthen platform shoredup by railway sleepers. It was hard for thedrivers to position the carriage right nextto it and the guard sometimes caught smallchildren as they jumped down from thetrain. The children got to know all the driversand guards.

The line continues to Upper Sturt(18 m 17 chains) and a platform was erectednear the end of tunnel No. 8 in 1884 due topublic demand.

The line as far as Nairne was successfullyopened in March 1883 and by January 1887 itwas possible to travel to Melbourne by rail.The section of the line up and over Mt Loftywas a massive engineering feat costing the livesof at least six men. It could never have beenachieved without the sweat and toil of thosemen and women living and working in therailway camps and these people as well as theengineers and Government figures, shouldnever be forgotten.

HERITAGE SURVEYS

The heritage surveys of the railway line werenot undertaken simultaneously, but wereincorporated into the surveys of adjacentlandscapes. For example, the tunnels at SleepsHill were included in the Sleeps Hill Quarrysurvey and locations within the Belair NationalPark were incorporated into surveys of thepark. During 2003 Janet Callen and Pam Smithsurveyed all of the line between the site of theHoffman kiln at Eden Hills and the LyntonStation.

The knowledge gained from this surveyadded to Callen’s already extensive knowledgeof the railway (Callen 2002). Neil Stallard(Friends of the Belair Station) and Diane Jamesresearched and recorded the Belair RailwayStation in detail prior to the fire that destroyed

the heritage listed Signal Box. Neil Stallardand Rick Irving (Mitcham Historical Society)assisted with a survey of the Sleeps Hillsection of the line. In addition, undergraduateCultural Heritage Management reports(Department of Archaeology, FlindersUniversity) were provided by Diane James(James 2002), Shirley Green (Green 2002),Ria Flynn (Flynn 2003) and Cate Dyer (Dyer2003). Each of these papers contributed to thepreparation of this report.

The locations of all sites referred tobelow were recorded by GPS and are shownon Plate 1. A large number of photographswere taken along the railway line, of whichonly a small number have been reproduced inthis report. Several of the photographs belowwere selected to enable comparisons with the

historic photographs above and to illustratethe changes that have taken place over time.

HERITAGE SURVEY REPORTS

Sleeps Hill Sidingand storage containers

Changes in the landscape around theformer Sleeps Hill Siding and loading baydramatically illustrate cultural landscapechange through time. The large concretestorage bins are the centre of a busy industrialscene in Figure 1.6. These were where thecrushed stone from the crushing plant wasstored before being loaded onto the trains.

The concrete storage bins were identifiedand recorded during 2003 and the samestorage bins shown in Figure 1.6 are illustrated

9

Figure 1.18 The former Sleeps Hill storage bins and siding, view 75°. SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

Figure 1.19 The Sleeps Hill bluestone powder magazine, view west. SOURCE HFZCHP 2004

The Hills Railway

in Figure 1.18. They are now neglected, graffiti-covered relics of the former Sleeps Hill Quarry.

The powder magazine

The bluestone ruins of a powder magazine

were identified on the western side of the

railway approximately 40 m from the mouth of

the Sleeps Hill tunnel (on the Clapham side),

see Plate 1. It is thought that the magazine

dates from 1918-9 when the new Sleeps Hill

tunnel replaced tunnels nos. 1 and 2. The

external dimensions of the structure are 3410

mm deep x 3220 mm wide. The internal walls

are ‘stepped’, as illustrated in Figure 1.19, and

are 1020 mm thick at the base graduating to

580 mm thick at a height of 1200 mm.

Tunnels 1 and 2

Tunnels 1 and 2 are described here as examplesof all seven tunnels constructed between 1880and 1883 between Sleeps Hill and NalawortSiding. Access to tunnels 1 and2 was not possible (although the Sleeps HillSurvey group were invited to view the winestorage tunnel). Both ends of both tunnels arebuilt to the same design, with brick facing wallsand sandstone quoins with a keystone archover the tunnel entrance and decorativesandstone side columns and capping. Alltunnels built along the line at this time wereconstructed to a standard size, 16 feet 6 incheshigh and 15 feet wide. Distinguishing featuresof tunnels 1 and 2 were the heavy iron doors,fitted during World War II when the tunnelwas used to store valuable State documents,rare books and works of art. It was not possibleto determine the extent to which these doorshave been modified since World War II. The

northern entrance to tunnel No. 1 is shown inFigure 1.20.

The viaduct, access trackand dry stone wall

The viaducts, approached through the mouthof the long tunnel, were imported from theEdgemoor Iron Company of Delaware,America and were designed by CaptainCharles Shaler Smith. As described above, theycrossed two deep gullies with creeks cascadingbeneath. The first bridge was 360 long and 96feet high, the second one 260 feet long and 72feet high. Again, comparisons between thephotograph of the viaduct illustrated on thecover, Figure 1.8 and Figure 1.21 demonstratethe extent to which this landscape has altered

over time. Only the concrete blocks thatsupported the framework of metal remains,with no hint of the great structure that oncecarried interstate steam trains over the valley.

As described above, 900 men using 100horses were employed during construction ofthe viaduct. Today a dry stone retaining wallalong a walking trail on the eastern side of therailway line marks the route used to transportthe men and materials into the valley. (Plate 1).The end of this track closest to the viaduct isshown in the foreground of Figure 1.8.

The Brickworks

The inspection of the site of the formerHoffman Brickworks, later the MetropolitanBrick Works, demonstrated the extent towhich an extensive complex can disappearfrom the landscape. The brickworks, c.1940s,is illustrated in Figure 1.12, and the siding as itappeared in 1965, is illustrated in Figure 1.11.

Today, almost all evidence of both thebrickworks and the siding have gone. Thebrickworks site was used for approximatelythirty years as a green-waste dump by theMitcham Council and today the highlydisturbed landscape is largely grassed, with ascatter of Metropolitan Brick Works (MBW)bricks recorded adjacent to where the sidinghad been located.

Belair Railway Dam and watersupply to Blackwood Station

The railway dam in the Belair National Park isdescribed in the report The Government Farmand Belair National Park, 1840-1910, this

10 The Mitcham Hills

Figure 1.20 Entrance to Tunnel No.1. SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

Figure 1.21 The concrete remains of theviaduct, with the old cutting inthe background (see Figure 1.14)view 185°.

SOURCE HFZCHP 2004

volume. The foot-valve and pipeline used tosupply the steam trains at the BlackwoodStation remains in situ and water continues tobe pumped from the dam for use in the park(see Figure 1.14).

Overway Bridge, Belair

The Overway Bridge, Belair, replaced tunnelNo. 5 during the alterations to the line in 1928.This was the scene of the rail accidentdescribed above and illustrated in Figure 1.15.The brickwork along the embankment in frontof the steam engine in Figure 1.15 remains insitu on the southern embankment on thewestern side of the bridge (this is outside ofthe Hills Face Zone).

The Belair Station

Two of the nineteenth century structuresremain, the ticket office built in 1879, and theshelter shed built in 1893 (Figure 1.16). Sadly,the heritage-listed signal box built in 1883, wasdestroyed in a fire lit by vandals in 2003. Thestation, described above, is on the StateHeritage Register (September 19, 1985 – StateHeritage Branch File 11524). The BelairRailway Station was evaluated as a significantsite because of its association with theAdelaide-Nairne Railway 1879-83 and as a rareexample of a station complex of timberconstruction representing the 1880-1900 era.A recommendation of the Register of StateHeritage Evaluation Sheet (Reference: 6628-

11524) is that the Belair Railway Station wouldbe suitable for interpretive sign outlining thegeneral history of the Hills Railway Line.

The Belair National Park

Refer to the Heritage Survey Reports in thereport, The Government Farm and BelairNational Park, 1840-1910, this volume.

CONCLUSION

The heritage significance of the Hills Railwaybetween Mitcham and the highest point of theMount Lofty Ranges has been acknowledgedthrough the State Heritage Listing of severalfeatures along the line. Those within the HillsFace Zone are the Belair Railway Station andthe Sleeps Hill tunnels and the viaducts. Onerecommendation for the Belair RailwayStation is that it should be developed as aninterpretive centre for the history of the hillsrailway. Project members strongly support thisconcept. As described in this report, there aremany stories that are able to be told about theconstruction of the line and the people whotravelled along it.

The recent nomination of the BelairHeritage/Conservation Zone adds a newdimension to this recommendation byrecognizing the heritage significance of theBelair Railway Station within a precinct, withpotential to become a focus of local heritage.Report 2, The Government Farm and BelairNational Park, 1840-1910, also stronglysupports this concept and identifies thepotential of the Belair Railway Station tobecome an interpretive center for both theYurrebilla Trail and the proposed Belair ParkHeritage Trail, both tourist experiences readilyaccessible by rail from the city.

112 The Government Farm and

Belair National Park, 1840-1910Pam Tamblyn, Pam Smith, Scott Chisholm and Matthew Rose

HE BELAIR NATIONAL PARK is a significantTpark, both nationally and internationally.Declared in December 1891, it was the firstnational park to be founded in SouthAustralia, the second in Australia. A publiccampaign at that time demanded that the areabe set aside for recreation and to conserve thenatural environment, although the 1891 Actfocused on recreational activities rather thanconservation (Department for Environmentand Heritage 2003:30).

Many of the original sections includedin the park in 1891 had, however, alreadybeen acquired by the South AustralianGovernment prior to the park’s declaration.An area known as the Government Farm hadbeen set aside in 1840, a part of which wasused for a summer residence for the Governorsin 1858. This land acquisition served toprotect much of the later park from extensiveland clearance and settlement from the earliestdays of the colony, despite the clear-felling ofthe fertile valleys within the GovernmentFarm. As a consequence, the presentconservation zones within the park protectone of the few areas of significant naturalvegetation and biodiversity along the westernface of the Mount Lofty Ranges.

The Belair National Park is located 13 kmsouth of Adelaide and today it coversapproximately 840 hectares. The topographicplan of the park (1908) illustrated in Figure 2.1shows the locations of many of the historicsites and structures referred to in this reportand identifies the locations of the many arborsthat have now disappeared. As a consequenceof the unusual history of the park, many of itscultural heritage values are unique and reflecta century of recreational activities andcommunity use. The Belair National Park isnow listed on the South Australian StateHeritage Register as a State Heritage Area andis classified as a Natural Monument (IUCNcategory III).

Given the time constraints and the size ofthe Conservation Zones, it was not practicableto conduct heritage surveys of all the zoneswithin the park. Priority was given to theHeritage/Recreation Zone, although someadditional areas were included. The heritagesurveys also excluded the many significantexotic (non-indigenous) trees within the park,most of which were planted prior to 1923.These trees have been thoroughly documented

by the Friends of Belair National Park and aSignificant Tree Register was being developedat the time the heritage surveys wereundertaken (Foster et al 2004).

The aims of the heritage surveys in theBelair National Park were:• to identify and record the locations of

historic sites and colonial cultural impactswithin the Belair National Park by GPS andto enter each site on the Cultural HeritageGIS database of the Hills Face Zone;

• to identify themes and cultural sites whichmay warrant further research; and

• to identify potential cultural tourismopportunities, including the development ofa heritage walking trail featuring historicsites within the vicinity of the YurrebillaWalking Trail.

At the same time as the internationalstandard walking trail across the western faceof the Mount Lofty Ranges, the YurrebillaTrail, was being planned in 2001, IndustryPartnerships were being negotiated toundertake the Hills Face Zone CulturalHeritage Project (HFZCHP). Followingnegotiations between this project and stafffrom National Parks and Wildlife, an IndustryPartnership was entered into between theAustralian Research Council, FlindersUniversity and the Department of Environ-ment and Heritage. It was agreed that theheritage survey teams working with thisproject would undertake the cultural heritage

surveys along the proposed route of theYurrebilla Trail. This route included thenorthern sector of the Belair National Park.Following this agreement discussions wereheld with the District Ranger, Terry Gregory,about extending the surveys throughout thepark. An agreement with the Yurrebilla TrailCommittee also included a component toresearch the marketing and promotion of thetrail and, as an extension of this research,Mr Gregory invited project members torecommend routes suitable for a HeritageWalk through the park.


The land on which Belair National Park is nowsituated was still largely unsurveyed in 1838when its first European occupier, NicholasFoote, was given permission by the colonialGovernment to remain as a squatter until theland was required for other purposes. Footechose the most extensive grassy floodplain ofthe largest creek in the locality, a majortributary (now known as Minno Creek) of theRiver Sturt. Foote set about adding improve-ments – an imported wooden Manningcottage, some fencing and a stockyard, costingin all about £600. In 1840 Foote was given theorder to remove himself from the site when thecolony’s second Governor, Colonel GeorgeGawler, saw the need to establish a ‘Govern-ment Farm’ for agisting horses and bullocksfrom the Survey, Emigration and Stores

Figure 2.2 ‘The Bi-sulphide of Carbon Manufactory’ 1885.SOURCE Old Government House Collection; also State Library of SA B4140 [part]

13

Figure 2.3 Recreational activities on the Chief (Main) Oval, 1908.SOURCE Commissioners of the National Park 1908

Departments, and for providing hay to feedGovernment stock. Foote, under protest, wasevicted with recompense of £300 for hisimprovements. In the tradition of many partsof the British Empire, the site also appealed tothe Governor for the provision of a hillsretreat, ‘a place of retirement’ from thesummer heat of the capital. The location wasan amenable one close to Adelaide, cooler insummer, sheltered, with well timbered slopesand adequate natural water from creeks andsprings.

To this end, in July 1840 the actingColonial Treasurer, George Hall, tendered onbehalf of the Government for ten surveyedsections of land, each containing eighty acres,including Nicholas Foote’s improvements.Another three sections were also reserved anda parcel of over 1000 acres of unsurveyedcountry was added. The statutory require-ments for the sale of land in the colony wereviolated in this instance by the offering of aprivate promissory note for only the first 800acres, a highly questionable procedure, leavingthe Government’s claim of ownership of theFarm as legally doubtful. John McLaren, fromthe Survey Department, was installed as thefirst Supervisor (or Keeper) of theGovernment Farm, residing in NicholasFoote’s former cottage.

The colony had fallen on straitenedfinancial circumstances during Gawler’s timein office and the next Governor, CaptainGeorge Grey, arrived in May 1841 to find just£713 in Government coffers, with public debtmounting. Grey ascertained that the disposalof Government assets such as stock, propertyand the Government Farm, “by no means anecessary appendage to the province” (Grey:21 May 1841), would alleviate the situationand so a public auction of the Farm wasimmediately set in train for 19 July. It was tobe an opportunity for settlers to purchase“this splendid farm containing about 1500acres of the richest land in the Province”(SAGovernment Gazette 30 June 1841). Howeverthe Government, by now wary of publicreaction to its assumed legal ownership of theland, cancelled the auction in haste and theGovernment Farm remained public property.The survey of the Farm was completed in theearly 1840s, hay harvested for animalsbelonging to the Government and fencingcommenced.

In 1843, Corporal Robert Moulton,formerly of the Sappers and Miners, wasappointed as Supervisor of the GovernmentFarm. He and his family first lived in the

Manning house, which leaked with every rainand had to be protected (ineffectively) bytarpaulins. He complained frequently toauthorities about the damp, draughty livingconditions and in 1848 a new cottage wasbuilt on higher ground in a more shelteredspot about 350 metres to the north of the oldwooden building. The new cottage was of localstone, had two solid rooms and two lean-tostructures. Moulton planted an enclosedvegetable garden on the fertile banks of anadjacent creek, in which he grew peas, beans,cabbages, cauliflowers, carrots and potatoes(GRG:24/6/1849/1279), the first step in thecultivation of this site, which was to becomethe Belair Woods and Forests Department(now State Flora) Nursery.

The five western-most sections of the Farm(874, 875, 878, 879 and 882) were sold in1844, subsequently used to grow vines andfruit and more recently became parts of thesuburbs of Belair and Glenalta. In the late1840s the Government was unsuccessful infinding suitable candidates for longer termleases of the Farm and responded to RobertMoulton’s appeals to be retained. At this timea large centrally located paddock of about 85acres (35 ha.) in extent was the only clearedland on the Farm and was known for manyyears as the House Paddock.

When the South Australian colonialadministration set up the Gold Escort in 1852to bring gold from the recently discovereddiggings in Victoria to be assayed in andexported from Adelaide, horses from the GoldEscorts were rested on the Government Farm.The old Manning house in the House Paddockwas made available as quarters for the

mounted officers, with a well-provisioned tackroom and stockyards and a stable nearby.Police presence remained officially on theFarm until savage cuts in police numbersoccurred in 1856. Moulton was forced to leavethe site, but was able to secure a position asCrown Lands Ranger at Mount Barker. The erais remembered by the current naming of thelocation as the Gold Escort Picnic Ground.

The 1850s had seen South Australia’seconomy grow, the result of the lucrative tradein gold, a situation of which the colony’s sixthGovernor, Sir Richard MacDonnell (1855-1862), took advantage to commission thedoubling in size of Government House inAdelaide (in 1856) and the building of asummer cottage in the Adelaide Hills (in 1858-1860). The Government Farm was chosen forits location and a site selected which had

… an English park-like character to the place…beautifully situated in a hollow, surrounded byhigh ground and forest.

Milner and Brierly 1869:168

The new retreat was designed by ColonialArchitect Edward Hamilton in 1858, given thename ‘Government Farm Cottage’ and built byreputable colonial builder, Charles Farr, nearCorporal Moulton’s cottage and garden. Stonefrom a quarry on the Farm was used in theconstruction of the cottage, with its roof madefrom shingles of local stringybark. Willungaslate was used in the building’s fireplaces,doorsteps, shelving in the underground cellarand for the floor of the large bathroom, intowhich was built the first indoor plunge pool inSouth Australia. The building was completedin 1860, the final cost in excess of £1600, a

The Government Farm and Belair National Park


1 The older, smaller cottage was enlarged in 1869by Charles Farr. The reinterpretation of the buildingin 1982 as servants’ quarters for the restoredOld Government House was based on the1869 structure.

2 This term was used by Surveyor-General Goyder:September 5, 1884. Figure 2.2 is the only knownextant photograph of the chemical works. Theventilation shaft which was visible in 1885 wasremoved when the building was subsequently usedfor sheds and hay storage. Evidence of soot stainswhere the furnaces had been located was foundduring structural repairs in 1978 (the fireplaces hadnot been used since 1886) and a degraded cast ironboiler was revealed during trench digging on thepremises in the early 1990s. (Personalcommunication from H. Campbell, E. Davey and P.Tamblyn 1992-1995).

large sum at the time. Minor improvementswere made to the older, smaller stone cottage,to be used as a kitchen annex by theGovernor’s attendants.1 There are no recordsof how the interiors of the Governor’s cottagewere furnished, but, of necessity, furniture andfurnishings were sparse. Reinterpretations in1978 and 2001 of the building, known now asOld Government House (with a separateservants’ quarters in the smaller cottage), havebeen as a residence befitting a mid-Victorianviceregal couple (Cook 1942).

During the governorship of MacDonnell’ssuccessor, Sir Dominick Daly (1862-1868), theGovernment Farm Cottage was referred torather loftily as the Governor’s country villaand Corporal Moulton’s former vegetablegarden was planted with several species ofEnglish and European trees, aimed to form apleasant, wooded area to the north of theviceregal cottage. Its plantings were also to seehow well such trees would acclimatise in SouthAustralia. It was referred to in officialcorrespondence of the time as the GovernmentGarden and marked on early plans as theBelair Experimental Orchard.

In the early 1870s Government FarmCottage was the home of Major John AdamFergusson, the newly wed younger brother andprivate secretary of Governor Sir JamesFergusson. The Major often complained aboutthe building. The cellar was frequently filledwith ground water, emitting, as had beencommented on some time earlier, “a dank andfoetid odour” (GRG:38/1/1864/30), the bath-room was constantly damp and effluent wouldnot drain away from the building. Before theirdeparture from the colony in 1874, bothFergusson brothers indicated that accomm-odation at the cottage and its unsanitaryconditions needed much improvement if thecottage was to be suitable for the nextGovernor, but their advice was not acted onand a new, larger viceregal summer residencewas subsequently built at Marble Hill.

Government Farm Keeper, William Cookwas appointed in 1874. His job was to keeptrack of all Government stock agisted on theFarm and liaise with fencing contractors,licensees for wattle bark stripping and timbercutters. A devastating bushfire swept acrossthe Farm on February 5, 1877. All stonestructures survived, but widespread damage

was done to timber outbuildings andvegetation in the path of the fire, the effects ofwhich were felt for several years. Licences weregranted for the removal of the large amount ofdead timber on the Farm, many miles offencing had to be renewed and the decimatedGovernment Garden and Orchard wasabandoned. By 1880 the Nairne railway linewas under construction right through themiddle of the Government Farm. Mr Cook’stime was then largely taken up dealing withthe railway contractors. For the section of theline east of the Belair Station, the railwaycamps were on the Government Farm andCook was instructed by the Surveyor-Generalon more than one occasion to watch out forinterlopers “causing inconveniences” (likepoaching, pilfering and shooting), the culpritsmainly the railway navvies, a rough, colourfulbunch, prone to the above activities andfurther, drunkenness and, literally, murder.

In the meantime the Government hadanother problem on its hands. Rabbits hadspread in plague proportions in the colonyduring the 1870s and the Government wascalled on to lead in the eradication of thepests, described in Parliament on 19 June 1879as “that perfect nuisance”. One of the solutionswas to manufacture poison that would besupplied to landowners at minimal cost. Theproject was given to George Goyder (Junior), acapable analytical chemist and son ofSurveyor-General, George Goyder, who chosethe highly toxic and volatile carbonbisulphide. The Government Farm, by nowunder the jurisdiction of the Surveyor-General,was still a relatively remote area, its coolerclimate suited to the preparation of the poisonrather than the hotter Adelaide Plains andthere was a ready supply of suitable timber forthe furnaces (the native she-oak). The newrailway was forging through the Hills, its routerunning through the Farm, providing moreefficient transport of raw products, mainlysulphur from Port Adelaide, and an outlet forthe finished drums of poison. The unoccupiedGovernment Cottage buildings (the formerviceregal residence) were ideal premises forthe venture (Figure 2.2). The cottage itself wassuitable living quarters for the Foreman ofWorks, a German chemist named MaxBernbaum, and the kitchen annex was easilyadapted as a laboratory with suitable furnaces,retorts, ventilation and storage to make a “Bi-sulphide of Carbon Manufactory”.2 Theplunge pool was a repository of water, theSurveyor-General himself urging the hands tokeep the “bath filled and buckets at the ready”

in case of fire.A large amount of poison was made from

1879 to 1884 which was sold for 1/3d perpound to landowners in South Australia, withsome exported to other colonies. The work washard, constant and dangerous. It wasdiscontinued in 1885 when an investigationinto the chemical works revealed that some ofthe apparatus was damaged beyond repair,and as there was a year’s supply of poison inreserve, the hands were re-deployed and theremaining machinery disposed of. Thebuildings were handed over to the newlycreated Woods and Forests Department in July1886, to be used as accommodation for thecurators of the Government Nursery set up onthe old Government Garden site (Woods andForests Department 1886). The Nurserythrived and is still in business. However, today,the only visible remains of the Nursery pre-1900 are a few large, mature exotic conifersand an adjacent stand of sugar gums.

A major change in the status of theGovernment Farm occurred in the 1880s.With the completion of the railway early in thedecade, the land outside the boundaries of theGovernment Farm had been developed assmall holdings, berry gardens and orchards,and pressure was put on the Government toalso subdivide the Farm itself into affordableallotments for the increasing number ofsettlers in the colony with small amounts ofcapital. However, other notions for the Farmwere being mooted, including that of use as apublic park. In the late 19th century theconcept of a national pleasure ground for themasses was gaining favour among the morepublic-spirited and several of Adelaide’sleading citizens spearheaded a campaign tokeep the Government Farm in public hands.On January 10, 1882 a Memorial, signed by312 gentlemen, was presented to Alfred Catt,the Commissioner of Crown Lands, to bringthe matter before Parliament. The Memorialexpressed regret at the Government’s decisionto put the land up for sale and proposed that

15

3 In 1891 the Belair Forest Reserve was incorporatedinto the National Park, except for the Woods andForests Nursery and residence. The residence andgrounds, known for the first half of the 20thcentury as ‘The Rest’, were returned to the Park in1958 and restored as Old Government House andthe land component of the Nursery was resumed aspart of the Park in 1998.

Figure 2.4 GIS Map showing the locations of sites and heritage landscapes recorded in theBelair National Park (tennis court shelters have not been included).

SOURCE HFZCHP GIS Database 2005

the Government Farm could, and should, beput to better use as any of the following – awater reserve, an experimental farm, a forestreserve, an acclimatization station, zoologicalgardens or, most desirable of all, as a nationalrecreation ground, a public estate for thebenefit of the whole colony. Parliament wasdivided over the issue. Public opinion andeventually that of the Government was swayedby the precedent set elsewhere in the worldwhere “the experience of older countriespointed that immense amounts of money werespent in acquiring parks for the masses” (C.Peacock, Memorial deputation: January 10,1882), a course not favoured by anygovernment and, in this particular instance,unnecessary. The press also did not let up,exhorting the public to “never be satisfied tilltheir grand estate near Belair is secured tothem in its integrity” (Advertiser December 19,1881). Catt’s persistence, aided by sympatheticcity newspapers, saw an Act of Parliamentpassed in October 1883, preventing theGovernment from selling the GovernmentFarm.

The Field Naturalists Section of the RoyalSociety of South Australia was formed in 1883for the study and preservation of native floraand fauna, with its members keen to haveaccess to a public venue like the GovernmentFarm, which would be most suitable for theiractivities. They realised, however, that,although the sale of the Farm had beenprevented, there was nothing in the Act to stopthe Government from using the land to itsadvantage in one of the forms recommendedin the 1882 Memorial. That is, in fact, whathappened very soon. Some Governmentofficials, in particular Goyder, the influentialSurveyor-General, felt that the Farm couldraise revenue for the Government at the sametime as providing for public recreation. In July1886, 500 acres (208 ha.) in the north-westernpart of the Farm were set aside as the BelairForest Reserve under the Woods and ForestsDepartment (Woods and Forests Department1886). The local blue and red gums werethinned in anticipation of the natural forestbecoming a viable commercial enterprise andin 1887 a plantation of South Australian Sugargums and exotic Aleppo and Radiata pines wasplanted close to the newly completed BelairRailway Station. The idea was for the Woodsand Forests Department to acquire more of theFarm in increments and extend forest cultureat Belair. A Government Nursery was set up onthe old Government Garden initially to raisetrees for southern Forest Reserves and theNurseryman in charge was housed in the

former viceregal cottage. To cater for theincreasing public interest in recreation, asmall part of the Plantation was cleared forpicnickers and walkers arriving at Belair byrail and a Hawthorn maze of six largeconcentric circles was planted on the site as anadded attraction. Although this maze hasalways been beset by problems (soil, water,maintenance), it now exists as the onlysurviving colonial maze in Australia.

By the late 1880s the Government stilldesired the breaking up of the Farm intoworking men’s blocks, further jeopardizingthe Farm for the general public. The FieldNaturalists were now supported by theAustralian Natives Association and the Tradesand Labour Council, the campaignintensifying to retain the Farm both for theprotection of the native flora and fauna of theAdelaide Hills and for public recreation.Samuel Dixon, a member of the Native Floraand Fauna Protection Committee and apassionate environmentalist far ahead of histime, was alarmed at the continuing felling ofthe Belair Forest Reserve’s natural timber andtook the campaign one step further, calling forthe Government Farm to be declared a public

park managed by a board of trustees. Over thenext twelve months the issue was keenlydebated in both Parliament and the publicarena before the National Park Act was passed,creating South Australia’s first national park.The Act was gazetted on 19 December 1891and the Government Farm3 was vested to aBoard of twelve Commissioners in perpetuityas the National Park of South Australia.

From the inception of the National Park in1891, its Board of Commissioners, led by SirEdwin Smith, immediately pursued the policyof developing the park as a public recreationground. This was the most viable financialoption, as the Government expected theCommissioners to find funds to supplementthe small annual Government grant, initiallyjust £150, to care for the park and also providefacilities for the public. The Board took office



from January 19, 1892 and appointed aCurator of the National Park, W.H. Sanders,who was responsible for the day to daymanagement of the park. He was also to act asSecretary to the Board, keep its books, overseethe park-hands and report works in progressto the Board. Funds were further generated bythe sale of cleared timber, the stripping ofwattle bark and depasturing of stock and workbegan immediately on the building of roadsand the Chief (Main) Oval. Tennis courts,wells, shelters and arbours followed. In thefirst fifteen years four ovals, three staff lodges,two large pavilions and refreshment rooms, 21tennis courts, several cricket pitches andrunning tracks and twenty picnic arbours werebuilt, setting the pattern still evident today inthe recreational facilities in the park. Figure 2.3illustrates recreation on the main oval in 1908.

Aboriginal names (not relevant locally)were chosen for the main valleys – the oldHouse Paddock Creek of the GovernmentFarm became Minno Creek and other namechanges included Honeysuckle Gully toTarnma, Waterfall Creek to Workanda and theadoption of Karka, Tapurro, Peroomba andKurru for other valleys. The main recreationareas were served by several miles of roadwayand walking tracks fanned out from the BelairRailway Station to various picnic locations.

Some major changes in the appearance ofthe landscape took place in the first twentyyears of the park’s existence. The notion,widely held in the late 19th century, thatnative vegetation was inferior to more familiarNorthern Hemisphere treescapes led to themassive planting of exotics as park featuresand for shade around picnic sites, arbours andtennis courts. Consequently there are someremarkable and beautiful non-indigenous treeplantings from circa 1900. The Board formed aPlanting Committee, the members of which,Samuel Dixon, Walter Gill, the Conservator ofForests, and Dr M. Holtze, Director of theAdelaide Botanic Garden, provided advice andalso some of the tree stock – deciduous andevergreen shade trees, conifers and some ofthe more spectacular Australian species.These trees and smaller shrubs, climbersand creepers achieved the aim of theCommissioners to provide “varied andcharmed scenery… with restful, shady nooks…amid sylvan repose” (Commissioners of theNational Park 1908).

The preservation of the natural flora andfauna was a secondary consideration, althoughafter some years had elapsed, Samuel Dixonmanaged to secure the eastern part of the

National Park as a ‘refuge for our nativeflora and fauna’ (ibid.). Consequently thatpart of the park east of the railway line hasremained in much the same natural stateas it was 150 years ago, so that today thefabric of Belair National Park reflects manyelements of its natural as well as its culturaland colonial heritage.

HERITAGE SURVEY REPORTS

Most historic sites and landscapes in theBelair National Park are located along thenineteenth and early twentieth century routesof the park, particularly those adjacent to therailway stations and along the Minno andWorkanda Creeks. These are now within thearea of the park defined as the Heritage/Recreation Zone and, on the advice given bythe staff consulted, our surveys concentratedon this zone (see Department of Environmentand Heritage 2003:15).

Over a period of two years (2003-2004)several methods were used to identify andsurvey historic sites in the park. Teams ofvolunteers completed two field surveys in thevicinity of the Sixteen Mile camp and theSeventeen Mile camp. These camp sites wereused to accommodate the navvies during theconstruction of the railway through the hills.The central sector of the Heritage/Conservation Zone along Minno Creek wasalso completed by one of these survey teams.Pam Smith inspected a number of individualsites with Ron and Pam Tamblyn and wasdirected to other sites by them. Undergraduatestudents enrolled in Cultural HeritageManagement and Historical Archaeology atFlinders University, researched individual sitesand made recommendations. The reports of allof these surveys are presented below.

The location of each historic site andlandscape documented was entered into theHills Face Zone Cultural Heritage GISdatabase. A map of the park, Figure 2.4, hasbeen taken from this database and identifiesthe locations of all sites referred to.

THE ‘BELAIR STORY’HERITAGE TRAIL

Following a meeting in 2002 with TerryGregory, District Ranger, Sturt District,National Parks and Wildlife, the Hills FaceZone Cultural Heritage Project was invitedto investigate and recommend a routefor a Heritage Trail in Belair National Park.Consultations were held with Ron andPam Tamblyn (Friends of Belair NationalPark), Tim Fuhlbohm (National Parks and

Wildlife staff ) and several park rangers.Matthew Rose, a Cultural Tourism studentfrom Flinders University, identified a route fora heritage trail and his recommendations areincluded in this report (Rose 2002).

An important function of the BelairNational Park since its inception has been theprovision of recreational facilities. The ovalsand tennis courts have always been popular,although as the 20th century progressed, adecline occurred in the percentage of thepopulation of Adelaide using these facilities,whilst the number of people and groups usingthe walking trails in the park increased(Environment and Heritage 2003). Theaddition of a Heritage Trail to the range ofrecreational opportunities in the parkrecognises this change in recreational usergroups and is in keeping with therecommendations of the of the 2003 BelairNational Park Management Plan(Environment and Heritage 2003:33). Rose’srecommendations for the interpretation ofheritage sites within the park included theidentification of four historical themes for thegrouping of interpretations. The four themesare: Park Origins, The National Park,Development and Social Mecca and TheRailway. His chosen interpretive medium wasthe self-guided trail brochure, highlightingsites of heritage significance along the trail.Information about the aim of the interpret-ation, those most likely to use the trail andresponsibilities for site management, isprovided in Rose (2002) and future research todevelop the Heritage Trail should incorporateRose’s recommendations.

This proposal for a Heritage Trail links thehistory of the park with many of the historicsites that can be dated to the late nineteenthand early twentieth centuries. These sites aredescribed below in a sequence that follows therecommended route.

The route surveyed for the Heritage Trail iswithin the Heritage/Conservation Zone andcommences and ends at the Belair RailwayStation. The station was selected because of itshistorical associations with the park andbecause a regular train service from Adelaidecontinues to provide low-cost transport to thepark for those who use public transport,including tourists. Car parking is also availableto visitors to the park who arrive by car.

The Belair Railway Station

The Belair Railway Station is an appropriateplace to commence the Heritage Trail. Thestation is listed on the State Heritage Register

17

Figure 2.5 Belair Railway Station. n.d. View: south-east.SOURCE The Tanya Lehmann Postcard Collection

and is notable for its original nineteenthcentury timber construction and architecturalfeatures, illustrated in Figure 2.5. During thelate nineteenth and early twentieth centuriesthe train was the only public transport to thepark and most weekends hundreds of peopledisembarked at the Belair Station to picnic inthe park and to enjoy the park’s ovals andtennis courts (see Cordes 1983:239). From thestation the visitors could walk or they couldcatch a horse-drawn drag trolley to either theMain Oval or to Long Gully – in 1908 the farewas threepence for adults and tuppence forchildren (Cordes 1983:53).

A detailed heritage survey of the BelairStation is reported in the chapter The HillsRailway, this volume.

Belair Lodge

The Belair Lodge, located at the railway bridgeentrance on the northern side of the park, is ashort walk east from the Belair RailwayStation. The lodge is a villa style stone houseconstructed in 1893. It is currently used as aprivate residence within the park and there isno public access. From the rear of the house itis possible to see the original (pre-railway)alignment of the carriageway along SirEdwin’s Avenue.

Trail notes: The Heritage Trail then followsthe walking trail from the northern end of SirEdwin’s Avenue, along the Brady Gully Trackto the Playford Lake (the historic path markedon Figure 2.1). Although this artificial lake onlydates from the 1960s, it provides anopportunity to rest and admire the wildlife.Continue south past the lake and past somesignificant Bunya trees adjacent to Courts 1and 2. These Bunyas are typical specimensremaining from two rows of Bunya pinesplanted in August 1900 to flank the roadway.

Tennis courts

Courts 1 and 2 are two of the earliest tenniscourts in the park and are shown in Figure 2.1.According to Cordes (1983:183) the firsttennis courts in the park were made availablefor public use on January 14, 1895. They werelawn courts, as suggested by the Curator, whoalso enforced the rule that prohibited thepublic from playing tennis on Sundays.Subsequent courts, however, were made fromclay. By 1908 there were 21 courts in the park(Cordes 1983:53). For many South Australianstennis is synonymous with the National Parkand these and other courts within the park arereminders of the many decades over whichSouth Australians have enjoyed theserecreational facilities.

Trail notes: Continue south of the courtscrossing Workanda Creek to a track junction.Follow the trail east, along the southern side ofthe creek, passing the historic Gums Oval onthe right. By the side of Workanda Creek isevidence of a small well, although it is difficultto find (refer to Figure 2.1). Crossing thebitumen road, continue to follow the trailalong the creek, until you come to a four-wayjunction. Take the trail to the right which leadspast the Government Farm Oval on the rightto the Belair Nursery.

The Belair Nursery

The Government Nursery was opened in 1886by the Woods and Forests Department. It waslocated on ten acres of land in the newlycreated Belair Forest Reserve. The nursery wasestablished to raise seedlings for State ForestReserves and as part of the Government’scampaign to encourage tree planting in thecolony. Seedlings were free until 1925 when acharge was introduced to cover expenses(Woods and Forests 1986). The nurserycontinues to sell to the public and has beencontinuously open for almost 120 years (nowas State Flora).

Old Government House

Old Government House was classified on theCommonwealth Register of the National Estateas a Registered Place in 1978 and is also on theState Heritage Register. It was built as SouthAustralia’s first viceregal summer residence in1858-1860 and, and although a relatively smallbuilding consisting of entrance hall, two main,three smaller rooms and a cellar, it reflects wellmid 19th century colonial architecture. Knownin the 19th century as Government Farm

Cottage, it served some of the colony’s earlyGovernors, most notably GovernorsMacDonnell and Daly, as a summer hillsretreat until the late 1870s. During this eraits most noteworthy architectural andhistorical feature was the plunge pool in itslarge interior bathroom. The pool was fed bywater piped from adjacent springs in themanner of 19th century European spa bathsand it is reputed to be the first indoor pool ofits kind in South Australia (Tamblyn 1997).

Following the building of a large viceregalsummer residence at Marble Hill in 1878,the Belair cottage was used by variousGovernment Departments as staff livingquarters until the building was resumedby the Commissioners of the National Parkin 1958, to be restored as a nationalmonument and reinterpreted as in its initialuse. Fortuitously, a complete set of the originalarchitectural plans of the building had beenkept, see Figure 2.6. These plans were faithfullyfollowed for structural restoration, andalthough there are no records of how theinteriors were decorated and furnished,re-interpretations in 1978 and 2001 havebeen as a residence befitting a mid-Victorianviceregal couple.

Trail notes: The Heritage Trail then leavesfrom the south-east corner of Old GovernmentHouse along the walking trail to Queen’sJubilee Drive. This section of Queen’s JubileeDrive features several early stone culvertsand views across Minno Valley. At the nextroad junction take the Railway Track offQueen’s Jubilee Drive. This track providesexcellent views of both the eastern end ofthe tunnel and across the park.



Figure 2.6 Plan of Government Farm Cottage 1859 – front elevation.SOURCE Old Government House Collection

Figure 2.7 The Railway Dam near Long Gully, Belair National Park, n.d. View: north-west.SOURCE Tanya Lehmann Postcard Collection

4 The modern spelling of arbour is just that. Oldspelling as used c.1900 and kept for many years was‘arbor’, so we have kept the old spelling in the titlese.g. Honeysuckle Arbor. Cf. Victor Harbor,Australian Labor Party, where 19th century spellinghas also been retained.

The Railway Line andNational Park Station

The section of track between the tunnel andthe site of the former National Park Stationcommences at the railway embankment, whichwas an extraordinary engineering feat seldomappreciated by the public. (Refer to theprevious report The Hills Railway, for moreinformation about the construction of thetunnels and the railway line). National ParkStation, built in 1936, no longer exists but formany years it was used by hundreds of visitorsto Long Gully every fine weekend. It was builtto supplement the Long Gully Station to thenorth-east, which had been the only access intoLong Gully by public transport since 1912.

Trail notes: The Heritage Trail from the siteof National Park Station enters the valley viathe steep track and timber steps that oncelinked Long Gully with the National ParkStation. Head south down the old station trackto the Long Gully Pavilion. On the old stationpathway there are some old seats still in placeand this is an interesting spot to rest –particularly if an interstate goods train passesby. An alternative track takes a longer routedown the hill and is probably the route to therailway line used by the navvies who built theline and tunnels (1880-1882).

Long Gully and the Pavilion

The attractive wide valley at the junction ofMinno and Tarnma Creeks has always been apopular destination for visitors to the park. In1904 an oval was constructed in Long Gully,with a kiosk and a large pavilion nearby. Alarge area in the valley is recorded as the OldCultivation Paddock on the 1908 Topograph-

ical Plan (Figure 2.1). The present pavilionreplaced the original building in 1928 and wasable to seat 550 people! These large pavilions,constructed to cater for large company picnics,were very popular and many companiesdeclared a holiday for employees to attendtheir picnic in the park. A running track nearthe Pavilion was provided on the western sideof the valley. The original kiosk, then known asthe Long Gully Refreshment Room, wasextended in 1909 and today serves as thecentre for the Friends of Belair National Park.

Trail notes: The trail now crosses MinnoCreek and follows the road west for a shortdistance to the Joseph Fisher Pavilion.

Joseph Fisher Pavilionand the American Redwoods

This was a very popular picnic site from theinception of the National Park. A group of

American redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) wasplanted in 1897-8 in this small, open gully andan arbour, called Sequoia Arbor wasconstructed between the trees. This arbour4

survived for many decades. The Pavilion wasbuilt on the northern side of the gully in 1904,funded by a £100 bequest from wealthyAdelaide businessman, Joseph Fisher, andtherefore named in his honour. Constructed intimber initially with a terracotta tile roof, itwas restored in local stone with pressed steelroof in 1964. Look down Valley Road and seethe clipped Kaffir Apple hedge. This hedge wasplanted in the 1890s along the new road toLong Gully.

Trail notes: The Heritage Trail then crossesMinno Creek at the ford opposite the JosephFisher Pavilion and follows the walking trailalong the north-eastern side of the RailwayDam. This track follows the nineteenthcentury route through the valley between LongGully and the Walnut Ground and crossedMinno Creek at the ford (Figure 2.1; Cordes1983:20). Follow the walking track, passing theRailway Dam, skirt the Walnut Picnic Groundand continue on to the Gold Escort Ground.

The Railway Dam

The Railway Dam and weir were constructedin the early 1880s to provide water for thesteam trains on the new railway line throughthe hills. The water was piped from the dam tothe railway station at Blackwood. Figure 2.7illustrates the lake as it appeared in the early

19

Figure 2.8 Gold Escort Picnic Ground. Keeper’s/Curator’s old house 1908, looking north.SOURCE Commissioners of the Park 1908

Figure 2.9 Gold Escort Picnic Ground. Reinterpretation of Keeper’s/Curator’s old houseand garden in period 1880-1910, view north. Features and trees no longer extantare in brackets. SOURCE Pam Tamblyn 2004

Figure 2.10 Gold Escort Picnic Ground 2003, looking north. SOURCE Jenny Skinner 2003

twentieth century and today the dam is anattractive water feature along the shadedwalking trail between Long Gully and theWalnut Ground.

The Walnut Paddock

This attractive area is bordered by MinnoCreek adjacent to which over sixty walnut treeswere once planted (in 1892). Today the treeshave gone and only the name survives.

The Commissioners’ Shack

This building is now in the Works Compoundand can be viewed through the wire fence.The Park Commissioners were significantcharacters in the history of the park andthis shack was where they met and couldstay overnight when visiting the park. Thebuilding is timber-framed with galvanisediron cladding, possibly on the site of aformer outbuilding.

The Gold Escort Ground

Surrounded by a number of very large Riverred gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis), some ofwhich are reputed to have been Indigenoushabitation trees (Carver 2001:100), the GoldEscort Ground is one of the most popularpicnic grounds in the park. It owes its name tothe Gold Escorts of the early 1850s in whichthe gold was brought to Adelaide from theVictorian goldfields under police escort (Blake1971:17-18). The present Gold Escort Groundwas where the horses were spelled after theirlong journey to Adelaide. This location was theheart of the earliest colonial occupation of thesite and was named the House Paddock (19thcentury), then the Home Paddock (20thcentury).

Also the Escort mounted officersrecuperated in the old Manning house, erectedhere in 1838, but which, by 1852, had beenenlarged with additions in local stone. In 1858further stone improvements were made to itand the Government Farm Keepers residedhere until 1891, then the Curator of theNational Park did, until a separate lodgeseveral hundred metres away was built for himin 1895 (see below). The old building wasdeclared unfit for habitation about 1920,gradually collapsed, its remains finally cartedaway in the 1950s.

The grassed flat rectangle where the houseand its small garden stood (enclosed by apicket fence – see Figure 2.8) is still visible anda few exotic trees dot the site, the oldest ofwhich appear to be a pepper tree and acommon fig (still fruiting). The old well wasrestored in 1991, when a plaque was also



Figure 2.11 Tourists in National Park, Belair, c.1926. Main Oval Refreshment Rooms(1904-1955) in background. Now site of present park information centre.

SOURCE Tanya Lehmann Postcard Collection

5 The 1893 Financial Statement lists the sinking ofthree wells adjacent to the oval, presumably theMain Oval, which we know had three wells(Cordes 1983:44).

Figure 2.12 Brick underground tank, north of the Main Oval Pavilion, Belair National Park,view south-east.

SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

installed to commemorate the site’s firstoccupant, Nicholas Foote in 1838. Nearby, thepath of a former ford across the creek can justbe discerned. The plan in Figure 2.9 locates thefeatures in Figure 2.8 and Figure 2.10 andillustrates the extent to which the Gold EscortPicnic Ground altered between 1900 and 2000.

The Curator’s Lodge

This stone villa with brick quoins and returnverandah is hidden in a grove of cypresses andflowering gums on the southern side of ValleyRoad. The house was constructed in 1895 forthe first Curator and Secretary of the NationalPark, W.H. Sanders. He was appointed in 1892and lived in the lodge during his appointment– which ended when he drowned in theRailway Dam on December 29, 1912.

Trail notes: From the Gold Escort Ground,the Heritage Trail follows a walking track alongMinno Creek downstream to the Main Ovaland Pavilion.

The Main Oval, Main OvalPavilion, gaol and wells

Constructed in 1893-4, the Main Oval was thefirst oval in the park and for over a century ithas continued to be the focus of sportingevents and leisure activities (Figure 2.11).

The first gaol was built north just north ofthe oval and is now marked by an interpretivesign; the second gaol was to the west of thissite, its concrete base still visible (it measures5.8 m x 2.3 m). Cordes described how draysarrived at the park carrying large kegs,resulting in drunk and disorderly behaviourand the main role of the gaol was to restrainthose ‘drunks’ involved in brawls (Cordes1983:74). The permanent staff at the park alsoacted as constables, although they woreconstables’ badges, but not uniforms (Cordes1983:78).

The pavilion adjacent to the Main Ovalopened in 1900 and was the first of thepavilions built in the park. Initially it couldaccommodate up to 200 people, but by 1913the demand was so great it was enlarged to itspresent size.

Two wells were sunk at the Main Oval in1893, one on either side. A third well is locatedadjacent to Minno Creek east of the pavilion.Underground tanks were constructed near theMain Oval in January 1900 (10,000 gallons)and April 1901 (20,000 gallons). Refer toFigure 2.1.5

Trail notes: From the Main Oval theHeritage Trail follows a path used in theheyday of travel to the park by train. This isnow a narrow trail passing east of the WesternLodge and winding below the Playford Lakeembankment through young Eucalypt forest toSir Edwin’s Avenue.

Western Lodge

This Victorian stone house with brick quoinswas built at the western entrance to the park in1893. At that time the lodge was known as theLower Lodge. Its first occupants were Andrewand Mary Wright. Andrew Wright wasemployed continuously at the National Parkfor 43 years and built many of the rusticbridges that were once a feature of the park(Cordes 1983:68, 70).

Sir Edwin’s Avenue

An avenue of giant sugar gums lines theformer main road into the park, that is, fromthe northern entrance to the park. The avenueis named after Sir Edwin Smith, a campaignerin the movement to save the land for publicuse during the 1880s, and first Chairman ofthe Board of Commissioners. This entrancehas been closed for several years and todaythis grand avenue of Eucalypts provides anattractive and peaceful route from the BelairLodge to the Playford Lake.

The Belair Maze

The last place to visit along the Heritage Trailis the Belair Maze. The hawthorn hedges wereclipped around the concentric pathways of themaze, planted in 1887 for the enjoyment of

21

6 All tunnels along the Adelaide to Nairne (later toMelbourne) railway line were numbered insequence from Adelaide. Although the number oftunnels has decreased we have used the nineteenthcentury numbering sequence.

Figure 2.13 Drawing of the scene of the “fatal affray” at Belair, view approximately 120°.SOURCE Frearson’s Weekly 6 November 1880 – copy held by the Mitcham Heritage Resource Centre

7 Crown Lands Ranger, Barton Hack, was sent to theGovernment Farm to ‘mark out camping gds pegs’with the brand GC↑ and instructions that ‘allpersons camping outside on grd on farm to beprosecuted’ (GRG: 35/20/1880/2240).

visitors to a 35 acre plantation provided forpublic recreation close to the Belair RailwayStation. The maze was a puzzle hedge similarto the one in the Forest of the Dean inGloucestershire. Although the Belair maze fellinto disrepair by the 1940s, remnants of itsurvived and it was restored in 1988 with aNational Estate Grant to the Garden HistorySociety. It has had further restoration andmore regular attention in recent years. Adetour to visit the Maze is recommended asyou return to the Belair Railway Station andthe end of the Heritage Trail.

THE TARNMA VALLEY

Surveys of the eastern and central areas of thepark focused on the Minno Creek valleybetween the Gold Escort Ground and LongGully, the Tarnma Creek valley, the railway linebetween tunnels 6 and 7 and a section to thenorth of tunnel 76 (see Figure 2.4). The surveyareas are within the Heritage/RecreationZones and the Railway Reserve. The survey ofthe Tarnma Valley is documented below. Thesection along Minno Creek between Queens’Jubilee Drive, the Gold Escort Ground andLong Gully is included above as part of theHeritage Trail.

The identification of two camp sites livedin by the men who constructed the tunnels forthe hills railway between 1879 and 1881,provided a rare opportunity to document aunique archaeological landscape. Although thecamp sites are now located within the BelairNational Park, they are rightly part of thelinear landscape along which the heritagesurvey and history of the railway line throughthe Adelaide Hills were carried out. This isdocumented in the report The Hills Railway(this volume). The tent sites, evidence of amakeshift shelter, tracks leading to the tunneland to Sheoak Road, the tunnel itself, a watersoak and a culturally modified tree comprisean historic landscape frozen in time.

Historical background:Fifteen Mile Camp, Sixteen MileCamp and Seventeen Mile Camp

The construction of the railway line throughthe Adelaide Hills commenced in 1879 and theline was opened on November 2, 1883 (SouthAustralian Railways. Locomotive EngineersDepartment 1883). The completion of the line

is considered to have been one of theoutstanding engineering feats in Australiaduring the nineteenth century (Observer 8November, 1879; refer to the report, The HillsRailway, this volume). Camps, in which thelabourers employed by the contractors Walkerand Swann lived, were located at regularintervals along the line.

Between 700 and 800 men were workingon the line at any given time (Norman 1953).Most of the labourers were skilled contractorsfrom England and Wales whose fares to thecolony were paid by the colonial Government(South Australian Railways 1875), although,according to the Observer (November 8, 1879)most were paid 15% less than regular contractworkers and no budget had been included inthe costing of the line for food and housing ofthese labourers (South Australian Railways1881: Figure 10).

For the section of the line east of the BelairStation, the railway camps were onGovernment Farm land7. Although noevidence of the Fifteen Mile Camp was located,it was recorded as ‘midway up the gully’(i.e. on the central section of Minno Creek) ina description of the ‘Fifteen-mile RailwayCamp’ given in the Register, January 11, 1882.The camp was further described in the samearticle as:

For the greater part (it) is on the side of thecreek, and for the rest scrambles up the steep hillson the left, covered evenly with green grass, nativecyclamen, and quandongs and ferns sprung upsince the last fire, and white and blue gum giantswhich successfully defied it, and its predecessor,too. The camp is like pretty all others inhabited bynavvies – dirty bag or canvas tents, and a woodenstoreroom in the centre, all with wonderful effectsin chimney architecture. The three camps on thefarm, like those outside of it on other portions ofthe line, have one peculiar feature, and that is theintoxicating effect of idleness upon the navvies.They get hopelessly drunk, though no one islicensed to sell inebriating drinks on the ground,and they don’t go off it to get the liquor elsewhere.Some of the boarding-house keepers say that this isone of the peculiar effects of the beautifully coolclimate. People who live in the vicinity predict sly-grog cases ere long .

Register, 11 January 1882

The Sixteen Mile camp was identified ashort distance south-west of the tunnel on theeastern boundary of the Belair National Parkand adjacent to the site of the Long Gullystation; the Seventeen Mile Camp was locatedat the other end of the same tunnel andslightly to the north. It is likely that bothcamps were occupied for the two years takento bore the tunnel and line it with bricks.The harsh lifestyle was relieved by sly-grogmerchants, who sold beer to the navvies by thebarrel. It is believed that men buried thebarrels to conceal them from the law, althoughthe police periodically raided the camps takingaway both the barrels and the drunks in carts.

In 1880, Frearson’s Weekly reported a“tragedy on the Nairne railway” and describedthe stabbing of an Irish Catholic by the name



8 An account of the inquest into Bell’s death at theSeventeen mile camp is given in graphic detail inthe Advertiser 3 November 1880.

Figure 2.14 Detail of post-contact culturallymodified tree in at SeventeenMile camp. SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

9 The scar resembled an Indigenous culturallymodified tree and the criteria for recordingIndigenous scars were used to record this tree(Carver 2001:122-123).

No. of Height aboveaxe cuts the ground

3 950-1090 mm

2 1980-2150 mm1 2910 mm1 3185 mm

Table 1.1 Number of axe cuts and heightabove the ground.

of Bell by an Orangeman named Walshe(Frearson’s Weekly November 6, 1880). Theargument had been over religion and the menhad been ‘inflamed’ by alcohol. During theinquest the coroner visited the site and heardevidence at the nearby Sixteen Mile Camp8.The incident was reported in Frearson’s Weekly:

It is rightly said that no difference of opinion ismore likely to lead to a quarrel than that on religion.The tragedy which occurred on Sunday last atthe 17 Mile Camp on the Nairne Railway stronglybears out this remark. Two navvies, the one namedWilliam Walshe and the other William Bell, hadbeen drinking, and an argument was begun ina tent. Blows were struck and Bell was stabbedfatally with a butcher’s knife. He lingered till nextday and then succumbed to the injuries. A chargeof wilful murder was laid on William Walsheand he was committed for trial (Frearson’s WeeklyNovember 6, 1880).

At this time a Frearson’s Weekly reportersketched the murder scene at the SeventeenMile camp and described it as a “wild andromantic place among the hills”. That sketchpreserved the layout of the camp and isreproduced in Figure 2.13.

It is likely that the Seventeen Mile Campwas not used after the completion of therailway line, although we have evidence thatthe Sixteen Mile Camp was used periodically.According to Sallis (1998:41) the Sixteen MileCamp, used by Walker and Swann between1880 and 1883 as a camp for the men buildingtunnel No. 7 and the railway line, wascommissioned for ‘train working purposes’during 1884. These purposes are thought tohave been an accommodation site for thesignal man and two points men who wereemployed at the Minno Siding for two years tochange the switches after each train (see theprevious chapter, The Hills Railway). The LongGully Station opened at this site in 1912 andbecame a popular station with visitors to thepark, although there is no evidence of anyoneliving in the camp until upgrade of the linehere to a double track in 1928 (SouthAustralian Railways, Office of the ChiefEngineer 1931:20). It is thought that the campmay have been used again when the tunnelswere upgraded during the depression of the1930s (Callen 2002).

Survey teams and methods

Two field surveys were undertaken to identifythe locations of the Sixteen Mile camp and theSeventeen Mile camp and the adjacent areas.

These surveys were undertaken on September28, 2003 (the Seventeen Mile camp) and April25, 2004 (the Sixteen Mile camp). Informationabout the locations of the camps had narrowedthe survey area to the eastern boundary of thepark. Both surveys were led by Pam Smith andwere undertaken by community volunteersand volunteers from the Flinders UniversityArchaeology Society. Ron Tamblyn, Presidentof the Friends of Belair National Park,provided detailed information about bothsites and was a co-leader of the survey on April25, 2004.

Transects were walked across the surveyareas where possible, although the steepterrain and dense thickets of blackberries andbracken prevented access into some areas. Thedistance between members of the surveyteams varied with the visibility of the ground.Individuals in the survey teams were givenresponsibility for photography, record keepingand GIS recording.

The Seventeen MileCamp site and environs

The areas surveyed on September 28 were:

(i) between the eastern side of Saddle HillRoad, the eastern park boundary andnorth of the railway line,

(ii) the western side of Saddle Hill Road inthe vicinity of the western entrance totunnel no. 7 and the waterfall and

(iii) to the south of the tunnel between SaddleHill Road and the floor of the valley(although this was very steep and largelyinaccessible).

Visibility: Much of the area was openStringy-bark forest (Eucalyptus obliqua),although the grass was high and there wereareas of impenetrable thickets of blackberriesand bracken.

Terrain: Moderately steep to extremelysteep with some areas not able to be surveyed.

Weather: Cool and mild.Initially the team members were spaced

approximately 8-10 metres apart and transectswere walked down the slope in an easterlydirection, with a narrow dirt track marking thenorthern transect.

Culturally modified post-contact treeA culturally modified stringy bark tree (E.obliqua) was identified east of Saddle Hill Roadclose to the eastern railway tunnel. A series ofaxe cuts on the southern side of the tree wasrecorded. All of these were contained within a3450 mm (height) x 325 mm (width) x <15mm (depth) scar9. The number and spacing ofthe axe cuts are shown on Table 1.1. Each cutwas made with the same 145 mm wide metalaxe head (Figure 2.14).

The typology of the scar suggests that thismay have been an Indigenous culturally

modified tree, although the use of such a treeis unconventional as it is unlikely that localAboriginal people would have utilized the barkof E. obliqua as a utensil. Several explanationsfor the origins of both the scar and the axemarks have been suggested. The only certaintyis that the axe marks were made by a sharpmetal axe and can, therefore, be dated to thepost-contact era (Carver 2001:104-106). Thelocation of the tree in the centre of an areaknown to have been a camp site for the menbuilding the nearby railway tunnel in the early1880s suggests that the axe cuts were made bythem and that the bark was removed tofacilitate a deeper cut into the tree in order toinsert climbing wedges. Whilst discussing whymen in the camp would have gone to suchlengths to climb the tree, it was suggested thatthe tree could have been used to support atelegraph line. The sketch of the SeventeenMile Camp shown in Figure 2.13 was examinedand a line, possibly a telegraph line, has beendrawn across the image. We may never knowwhat these axe cuts were for; however, it is aninteresting example of a culturally modifiedtree that should be included in the register of

23

10 This tree was badly scorched during a slow burnin the park in 2004.

Figure 2.15 Track linking the Seventeen Mile camp with the tunnel, view south-east.SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

Figure 2.16 Plan of the Seventeen Mile Camp, Belair National Park.SOURCE HFZCHP, by G. Copland 2005

Figure 2.17 Seventeen Mile camp, tent site 1, view east. SOURCE HFZCHP 2005

significant trees being compiled by the Friendsof Belair National Park10.

TracksThe progress of the survey team to the east washalted by a deep ravine. Evidence of a trackrunning north-south and cut into the slopewas found along the top of the ravine,commencing at a point later found to havebeen a ridge on top of tunnel No. 7. The trackwas followed to the north where it intersectedwith the track from Saddle Hill Road (northernboundary of our transects) at the head of theravine. A water soak within a highly disturbedlandscape was identified close to this junctionand on the northern side of the track was thefirst evidence of the Seventeen Mile Camp.The track then swung to the east and back tothe south following the edge of the ravineand continued to the mouth of the tunnel(Figure 2.15).

Further evidence of a camp site wasidentified along the track leading to thetunnel. This included a fragment of timbernailed to a tree and a tree with nails embeddedin it. When plotted on to a map these trackswere shown to link the Seventeen Mile Campsite with the soak, both the upper and lowerlevels of the tunnel and the Sixteen Mile Camp.

Seventeen Mile Camp siteThe field survey identified two square flatareas cut into a gentle slope, these wereidentified as being the sites of two canvastents, common in construction and miningcamps in the late nineteenth century. TentSites 1 and 2 were adjacent to each another, asillustrated above in Figure 2.13. A plan of thearea is shown in Figure 2.16 and the sites areillustrated in Figures 2.17 and 2.18.

Tent Site 1 was clearly defined on threesides and measured 65,600 mm wide x 3000mm deep. The northern and easternboundaries of Tent Site 2 were clearly defined,but the southern boundary could not beidentified. Tent Site 2 was 3000 mm deep, thesame as Tent Site 1. It is most likely that it wasthe same width as Tent Site 1. If so, thedistance between the tents would have been990 mm.

Both Tent Sites were associated with astone feature, or recess, on the eastern, uphillside. The recess was cut into the hill and linedwith dry stone walling. The recess on TentSite 1 measured 1200 mm wide x 1120 mmdeep x 70 mm at the maximum height. Therecess on Tent Site 2 measured 1200 mm wide



Figure 2.18 Seventeen Mile camp, tent site 2 – stone feature, view east. SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

11 Surface carbonised plant remains result frombushfires or ‘slow burns’ (fuel reduction fires)conducted by National Parks and Wildlife, SA.An excavation permit is required to excavate thehearths and no application for a permit has beenlodged at this stage.

Figure 2.19 A railway fence post withratchets and pawls.

SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

x 1300 mm deep x 860 mm at the maximumheight. We have not identified the function ofthe stone features, or recesses. They may havebeen the bases of roughly constructedchimneys and used to warm the tents duringthe cold winter nights. This would beconsistent with the quote:

… dirty bag or canvas tents, and a woodenstoreroom in the centre, all with wonderful effectsin chimney architecture…

Register, January 11, 188211

It is unlikely that there would have been ahearth adjacent to a tent and probably on theoutside of the canvas, and no stone chimneysare illustrated in Figure 2.13. Cooking in suchcamps would normally have been on a hearthaway from the tents. We speculate that thesemay have been where the navvies kept theirstore cool, or hid their stores of alcohol fromthe police.

SoakA short distance from the camp site is a watersoak. This site is identified above on Figure2.16. It appears to be highly disturbed withevidence that the creek bed has been widenedand modified. It is likely that the availability ofa water source dictated the location of thecamp at the time the tunnels were built. Wheninspected again at the end of the summer,2005, the area was still wet, although there wasno flowing water.

Railway fencesOn both sides of Saddle Hill Road there aremetal strainer posts with ratchets and pawls(stoppers) spaced at intervals along the post(pers. com. K. Preiss). These posts were usedto strain the heavy eight-gauge wire used toconstruct safety fences at either end of thetunnel at the eastern end of the park. Eachpost is 1.2 m tall and 150 mm wide and it islikely they date from the 1880s when therailway line was opened (Figure 2.19). On thenorthern side of Saddle Hill Road, the fenceposts have dropped over the edge of the cliffnear the waterfall reflecting erosion andchanges in the landscape over time.

Sixteen Mile Campand railway features

The survey of this area was undertaken onApril 24, 2004 and was led by Ron Tamblyn(Friends of Belair National Park) and Pam

Smith (Flinders University). The surveycommenced in the Tarnma Gully adjacent tothe now abandoned Long Gully railwaystation. The survey team worked along therailway line and the steep east-facing slope ofthe Tarnma Gully between the western end oftunnel 7 and the eastern end of tunnel 6. Thesurvey team then continued west alongQueen’s Jubilee Drive to the Gold EscortGround, a popular picnic area, and returned toLong Gully along the north-eastern side of theRailway Dam. Transects were impossible in

most areas because of the steep terrain anddense undergrowth. Refer to Figure 2.4 for thelocations of sites referred to.

Vegetation: Variable, although densethickets of blackberries along the floor of thevalley were impossible to penetrate.

Topography: Steep along the railway line.Sloping to flat through the Minno Valley.

Weather: Cool and fine.

Sixteen Mile Campand Long Gully Station

The area identified as the Sixteen Mile campand Long Gully Station was only partiallyrecorded as dense thickets of black berriesmade much of it inaccessible. This was acomplex site containing elements of the later‘dwellings’ (to the 1930s) referred to above,although these were little more than roughhuts made from timber frames and galvanisediron. Evidence of two structures was recorded,one of which is illustrated in Figure 2.20. Theother site contained two sheets of galvanisediron and subtle evidence of a supportingtimber frame. In addition to scatteredgalvanised iron and timber, artefacts werenoted in a small dump, but not collected.These included rusted food cans, a bucket witha home-made handle, a fish plate (cream-ware), a ginger beer bottle and several saucebottles. Steps, visible in the lower left-handcorner, below, led from the camp toward thecreek.

The camp site was dated to the 1920s-1930s (or later) based on the condition andgauge of the galvanised iron (Lysaght Referee1924). No evidence was found that could berelated to the Sixteen Mile Camp, except that a

25

Figure 2.20 Evidence of a camp at the Sixteen Mile Camp. SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

track that disappeared into blackberries ledfrom the camp across the valley to theentrance of tunnel No. 7. No evidence wasfound of permanent housing.

Minno Siding andLong Gully Station

Minno Siding, a railway siding, was usedbetween 1884 and 1886, as described above,and the Long Gully Station opened on thesame site in 1912.

The Long Gully Station platform on eitherside of the track is made of concrete andremains intact. A track with the original postand rail timber fence runs downhill from thestation toward Long Gully, passing on theuphill side of the camp. There is a dry stoneretaining wall along the uphill side of thetrack. Evidence of the signals remain and aceramic insulator with wooden screw terminaland inscribed with KP67. (A likelyinterpretation of this inscription is KosterPotteries 1867, but this has yet to beconfirmed.)

Between the station and the mouth oftunnel No. 7 a length of railway line had beenused as a telegraph pole. As with all ironmanufactured at this time, the manufacturerand date were inscribed on the side: WI&S(MOSS BAY) SAR 60 LBS 1910. The 60 LBSrefers to the weight of the iron per foot (pers.com. K. Preiss).

Approximately 80 m south along therailway line on the western side is the MinnoSiding. The house(s) of the signal man andpointsmen was known to be in the valleyadjacent to the siding, but the area is now soovergrown that access was impossible.

To the south-west of Minno Siding is aballast pit, excavated to supply ballast for therailway line (see Figure 2.1). We thendescended from the line into the TarnmaValley to a second small quarry, adjacent toSaddle Hill Road. Just before the junction ofthe track to the Long Gully Station and SaddleHill Road there are signs of agriculturalactivities and a well.

We then surveyed (what used to becalled Honeysuckle Gully) along the TarnmaCreek to the junction with Long Gully, passingthe Long Gully Pavilion and the site of oneof the once popular running tracks. Aspreviously mentioned, the remainder ofthis survey has been included above as a partof the Heritage Trail. The wide floor of thevalley in front of the Friends of the Belair Parkcentre (the former Kiosk) is possibly where thehorses used in the construction of the railwaywere pastured.

15 Mile Camp?

The above article in the Register (January 11,1882), stated that there had been three campsin the park at that time. Two have beenidentified and described. The third, theFifteen Mile Camp, is described in the Registerarticle, including a reference to the ‘chimneyarchitecture’. This camp site was not ableto be identified, although several clues werefollowed, including an area above the railwaydam. Although some distance from the FifteenMile mark, the Willow Spring valley wasinspected by Ron Tamblyn with Pam Smith.A now faint track leaves what had been the‘track to the valleys’ on the eastern side of therailway dam (this is illustrated in Figure 1.14,this volume). The track was followed into thevalley where it developed into a clearly definedmacadam track over two metres wide withdeep wheel ruts on either side. The trackpassed Willow Spring on the northern sideand continued to the head of the valley whereit continued to rise on an even gradient bytaking a zig-zag route up the steep side of thehill. It ended at the railway line at the southernend of tunnel No. 6. We felt that this longabandoned track had been used in theconstruction of the tunnel and that itsconstruction was similar to the track in LongGully and to the access track to the viaducts(refer to The Hills Railway, this volume).

Additional buildingsand features in the park

The Blue CottageThe Blue Cottage was built in 1864 on Section971, Hundred of Adelaide. It was originally afour-roomed cottage built from local stone.Adjacent to the cottage are remnants of theearlier orchard and a large underground wellwas the only water supply (Rudduck 1979).

This Section was originally purchased in 1854by Samuel Tonkinson and leased to JohnWescombe (Mitcham Council 1864). JohnWescombe had arrived in the colony with hisfamily from Somerset in 1838 and in 1841 wasone of a number of unemployed men who wereliving at the Government Farm at Belair. By1865 he had built this four-roomed cottageand was living in it with his family. The cottagewas occupied by several different ownersduring the twentieth century, each makingtheir own modifications. In 1962 the BlueCottage was annexed into the Belair NationalPark.

Karka PavilionThe Karka picnic precinct dates back to thelate 1890s. The recently renovated KarkaPavilion was constructed in 1911 at a cost of£540. It featured trellis on which climbingroses were to be grown, filling and tarring ofthe floors and two 2000-gallon water tanks(Cordes 1983:54). The recent renovations havebeen extensive and in keeping with theheritage significance of the building, apartfrom minor flaws, such as mismatching thecorrugated iron on the rear wall. The buildinghas also been painted ‘heritage’ colours,although the original cement finish had beenunpainted. The park is planning to use therefurbished pavilion as a function centre.

Melville HouseBuilt in the 1880s for the Melville familywho were gardeners and orchardists on theeastern boundary of the park, the cottageremained in the Melville family until 1961when the land was acquired by theCommissioners of the National Park. Someupgrading was done and the house served for adecade as youth accommodation. Morerecently it has been used as a rental property.



The Survey Teams

Scout Corroboree groundA Scout Corroboree was held in December1936 in South Australia to celebrate thecentenary of the State. Although welldocumented with photographs at the time,there is now little apparent evidence of theextent and nature of the Corroboree sites inthe park.

Cherry PlantationThe Cherry Plantation represents the remainsof 700 Japanese Cherry Trees planted inSparkes Gully as a World War I Memorial.This is a significant plantation, but is currentlybadly neglected.

CONCLUSIONS

The Burra Charter provides guidelines for theassessment of the heritage significance of sitessuch as those identified in this survey(Marquis-Kyle and Walker 2004). It was notpossible to assess every site in the Belair Parkaccording to the criteria of the Burra Charter,however, it is strongly recommended that sucha heritage survey is undertaken in the nearfuture. The assessment of the culturalsignificance of a place and other issuesaffecting its future are best understood by firstcollecting and analysing all sources ofinformation. This research project has takenthe first step towards achieving this, the nextstep should be the development of a culturalheritage policy and management strategy.

Despite the rich history of the BelairNational Park, there are surprisingly fewsignificant sources of cultural heritageinformation available. A self-guided tour of thehistoric sites identified above would providemany advantages for both the public and themany visitors. The guide would enable thepark’s rich cultural heritage to be interpreted

to visitors in an interesting form and wouldprovide an opportunity to promote the park tooverseas and interstate tourists. At the sametime the high cost of intrusive interpretivesigns could be avoided.

The railway camps in the Belair NationalPark represent a part of the history of the parkthat is seldom recognised and have not beenincluded in previous management strategiesfor the park (Department of Environment andHeritage 2003), yet they have the potential toelaborate on South Australia’s social history.Hundreds of men worked on the Adelaide toNairne Railway, providing an essential linkbetween South Australia and the eastern statesof Australia. The construction of the railwayalso represented an extraordinary feat ofmanual labour without the mechanicalequipment that we take for granted today. Asimple wire fence around the sites would besufficient to protect them from beingdamaged, particularly by mountain bikes.

273

HE Shepherds Hill Recreation Park is aTsmall park south of Adelaide and formspart of a continuous corridor of naturalvegetation linking the flora and fauna of theMount Lofty Ranges with the Adelaide Plains.As shown in Figure 3.1, it is possible to walkalong a major gully eastwards from ShepherdsHill Reserve to the Belair National Park, one ofthe oldest parks in Australia, through adjacentpublic land and the Watiparinga Flora Reserve.

Wattiparringga1 Creek and Walkers Creekare the two major water courses that windthrough the park and their catchment area isbounded by the southern end of Sleeps Hilland the eastern escarpment from GloucesterAvenue and across Viaduct Gully following theEden Fault line to Shepherds Hill Road.

Although the park is best known forits natural heritage values, it containsarchaeological evidence of both indigenousand colonial European occupation. Thisevidence has been almost completelydestroyed by changing land uses over the pastone hundred and fifty years, and the followingsensitive interpretation of the landscape ispossible only because of the author’s personalassociations with the area. Intimate knowledgeof the park, together with family anecdotesabout former owners, has enabled even themost subtle impressions on the landscape tobe interpreted. These include a Ha Ha, the siteof an early Manning House, remnants of anirrigation system and the site of an illegal still.

The organisation of this report differsfrom other reports. There was noarchaeological survey of the park as the sitesdescribed here had previously been identifiedand researched by the author. During 2002volunteers from the Flinders UniversityArchaeology Society and the MitchamHeritage Research Centre were led by theauthor to inspect these sites to record theirlocations for their inclusion on the Hills FaceZone Cultural Heritage GIS database.


The Aboriginal Heritage

The Traditional Owners of Shepherds HillReserve are the Kaurna people and

Wattiparringga is one of the few Kaurnanames used in the local area. It means plentyof water or middle creek and along the creekthere are several culturally modified RiverRed gums (E. camaldulensis) with scars wherekunamon and similar utensils were cut fromtheir bark (Figure 3.2). The large River Redgums near the entrance to the park areexcellent examples of such trees and theyillustrate how the Kaurna people cut thethick bark to make a variety of vessels.

It is most likely that the permanentsprings that fed Wattiparringga Creekand Walkers Creek had important symbolicassociations for the Kaurna and certainlywould have provided valued water suppliestoward the end of the hot summers.

European settlement

Wattiparringga Creek and Walkers Creekwere also essential to the nineteenth centuryland management systems that evolved inthe park and today the evidence of how waterwas used is central to understanding how the

Figure 3.1 Hundred of Adelaide, showing Sections.SOURCE Department of Lands Section map, withdrawn 1950s

1 Wattiparringga is the name accepted by the Kaunacommunity for the creek formerly known as ViaductCreek. This name was gazetted South AustralianGovernment Gazette 11 September, 2003.

present environment was shaped by earlierland uses.

Surveys of land in the vicinity of theShepherds Hill Recreation Park began assoon as the colonial surveys were commencedin 1836 and land grants for today’s MitchamCity Council plains area were issued from1838 and 1839, including Sections 36 south,35 south, 13 and 14. Parts of some theseSections and all of others are in the park, butdue to the economic downturn in the 1840sonly a few choice sections were taken up atthis time. By the time the District Councilof Mitcham (the first in SA) was proclaimedin May 1853 the rest of the district had beensurveyed including Section 15, the headwatersof Walker’s Creek, which was offered for salein 1851.

Various parts of the park that were oncepart of larger adjoining holdings over theyears were Glen Forbes, Glen Gordon, PallasHill, Tonsley, Ballantrae and Wandsworth.It is likely, however, the reserve takes its namefrom the nearby road Shepherds (sic.) Hill

Shepherds Hill Recreation Park:Suburban bush merges in time and placeMaggy Ragless


named after Ann Shephard and who ownedSections 32, 33, 34 and Section 2202 at thetop of the hill near Blackwood (Figure 3.3).

Her land was known as Winsor Farm,and later Sturtbrae. When the Shepherds HillRoad was constructed through her propertyand that of neighbour H. Gordon Cook in1853, they protested to the Mitcham DistrictCouncil. It is unlikely to have been namedbecause of shepherds working sheep therebecause fencing materials were accessibleand it was relatively easy to manage suchsmall areas.

Wattiparringga Creek was referred toas Viaduct Creek between 1883 when therailway viaduct bridges were constructedand 2003 when in consultation with theKaurna Community the present spelling wasadopted (South Australian Government Gazette,11 September 2003). Walkers Creek wasnamed after Mary Ann and George Walkerwho between 1886 and 1923 owned adjoiningSection 34 through which most of the creekran. The name was probably used by the Millsfamily when they purchased Section 34 to addto their Sturtbrae property.

The creek was also fed by other springs,however, some of these were cut and ceasedto flow when the railway line through thehills was constructed in the 1880s and in the1920s, and when earthquakes occurred in1902 and 1954.

Land use

The five 80-acre sections were taken up by thetime Mitcham Council was proclaimed and asa consequence we have continuous and

consistent occupation records, complementedby various Applications and the Certificatesof Title. It is now possible to make reasonableassumptions about the historical land useactivities and management strategies basedon these records. In addition, genealogicalsources, directories and family histories ofthe people who owned or occupied this areahave been researched.

By 1853 all five sections were ownedby different people from a wide variety ofbackgrounds and four had dwellings erectedon them. One was a family of the unmarriedadult children of a sea captain, another wasan absentee landlord who rented his propertyand who was recorded as being a magistrate.A section of hill country was part of a largeradjacent dairy and another section was a smallfarm that the owner had been given for actingas an agent for an English Colonel intending tosettle a branch of his family.

There was limited cultivation of cropsand orchards along the creek flats while thebroad acres were used for sheep on the lowerreaches and cattle in the hilly area. Mostof the successful land owners or lessees ownedsections of land both on the plains and thehills to give a mix farm of cropping andstock grazing. The Ayliffe, Kelly, Watts, Chalkand Ragless families are examples of this typeof management.

Pressures for change

The discovery of gold in Victoria in the 1850sand the Government Gold Escort bringing itand the diggers home to SA also broughtprosperity. Consequently the demand for landgrew and encouraged further surveying andnew sections in the surrounding hills becameavailable. Records from this time tell us that 18year old Thomas H. Ayliffe sent 6oz of goldback to his mother Elizabeth in May 1852 andThomas Chalk (Sen.) died on the Forest CreekDiggings from inflammation of the lungs inMarch 1852. (State Records GRG5/PoliceRecords, Gold Escort Return; Register 1 April1852 pg2E).

The 1870s were full of debate about therailway route through the hills and on toMelbourne. When the route was finallydecided there was a frenzy of real estatesubdivision by several syndicates along theproposed route. James Hill was a member ofone of these and bought up land prior to theopening of the railway in 1883. This resulted inthe first subdivision adjoining the reserve atEden Hills, although sales were slow due to aneconomic depression in the 1890s. The hillsdid become an attractive place to live, ascommuting by train to a job in town providedconvenient access (Figure 3.5).

After World War I the laying out of theGarden Suburb, subsequently Colonel LightGardens, encouraged many landholdersnearby to subdivide. This trend included ChrisRagless for Section 36sth, but the day of thesale was wet and no-one came! However,subdivisions adjoining what was to becomeShepherds Hill Recreation Park were moresuccessful i.e., Section 35nth Pt Section 2100as South Road Estate in 1925, Pt Section 35 tothe south as Cobham Gardens and Kinedanain 1926, Pt Section 13 to the north, asPasadena 1927 and Section 64 to the west, asBurbank 1927. All these subdivisions sufferedlack of land sales because of the GreatDepression (Lands Department Deposit Plansincluding Deposited Plans 3360, 3570).

The increasing population surroundingthe park brought pressure on the rural lifestyleof the landholders of the reserve. There wereunsupervised children and dogs roamingaround, disturbing, chasing or killing thestock, poor people collecting firewood,including slicing wood fence posts and oftenanything else left lying around. (Pers. com.Isabel, Ken and Gordon Ragless and SidneyEberhardt.)

The Ashby family, who had beenresponsible for much of the subdivision of

Figure 3.3 Mrs Ann Shephard nee Garrettc.1810-1867.

SOURCE Marion Methodist church Jubilee booklet, c.1912

Figure 3.2 Kunamon cut by Aboriginals onWattipparingga Creek.

SOURCE M.E. Ragless photo ref. CP3ph22, 7 May 1995

29

Figure 3.4 Heritage listed gum tree before the interesting bough was cut off the main tree.6 June 1976. SOURCE M.E. Ragless Photo ref. SLRF1 Ph10

Shepherds Hill Recreation Park

Eden Hills and Blackwood gradually sincethe 1900s, decided to make one of the firstbequests, in 1956, to the newly formedNational Trust of South Australia (Robertson1984) This reserve has effectively protectedmost of the headwaters of the WattiparringgaCreek as weed control has been consistentthrough the transition of rural to parkland use.

SETTLEMENT

Sections 13 and 14

Frederick Mitchell was sent by ColonelWyndham to select land and erected housesfor the Ayliffe family and himself before theirarrival in 1838. He was not a good judge ofcountry but under the criteria had to selectland near to the town, which he did. Sections12, 13 and 14 Hundred of Adelaide werechosen along with land near Clare and onwaterless Yorke Peninsula. On board theship that brought the Ayliffe family waseverything to ensure their comfort. The daythey landed and before the ship was fullyunloaded, a heavy equinoctial gale set in andthe old ship broke from her moorings withmost of the cargo and baggage being sweptinto the sea, including Mrs Hester Ayliffe’sjewel box! There were also reputedly a largeflock of store sheep, a number of horses forworking, riding and with stallions, and broodmares on board. Henry Ayers, later Sir Henry,was head groom and Coote was chief managerof the Ayliffe horse stud. Reputedly this studlater helped to establish Marybynon, a racing

stud owned by the Fishers and by John Bakerof Morialta, both of whom became rich on thewinnings of racers bred from the Ayliffe stud(Hamilton 1978).

In 1840 a return was sent to Englandsetting out the progress of settlement. It wasa review of housing, crops, fencing and water.In the return Frederick Mitchell’s Section 14and adjoining Sections 12 and 13, whichbecame Ayliffe’s Wyndham Farm, werementioned. Their proximity gave the Ayliffesaccess to water from the creek and allowed thetwo properties to be worked together. Withina couple of years there were three dwellinghouses, a stockyard, etc. Five acres of wheat,sown in June, was a poor crop andconsiderably smutted. A middling crop ofan acre of barley and a light crop of anotheracre of oats were also grown. There was alsohalf an acre of potatoes. Possibly these wereenclosed inside eight acres of brush fenceand watered from Section 14 (BritishParliamentary Papers Vol 7 1842-44). In 1841a cattle brand, ‘AHE’, was applied for byThomas Ayliffe and his sons, George andHenry Ayliffe. (South Australian GovernmentGazette, 25 March 1841).

Dr Thomas and Hester Ayliffe (nee Jinks)left their married daughters in England andwith their married sons Dr George’s familyand the betrothed Henry arrived aboardthe Pestonjee Bomanjee in 1838. Their middleson Thomas Hamiliton Ayliffe arrived later.He married Jane Bell in 1845 and eventuallysettled at Hamley Bridge. Dr Thomasand Hester’s home was called Belle Vue andDr George’s Wyndham Farm.

The family had been plagued withmisfortune for generations and regrettably itfollowed them to the colony. The colonylanguished into depression in the early 1840sattributed to Governor Gawler’s extravagantbuilding enterprises, for example, a gaol,hospitals and asylums and buildings forgovernment administration.

George Ayliffe was among the settlers whofavoured abandoning the colony of SouthAustralia. He had unsuccessfully applied for agovernment posting to Port Lincoln to lookafter the troops and police there. Drinking atthe Kangaroo Inn on the west side of SouthRoad (a little south of present day CelticAvenue, Clovelly Park), perhaps celebrating thebirth of his son Frederick, he made a bet thathe could carry a load of stones from the hotelto the top of Ayliffe’s Hill (now Quinton Hill,Pasadena), where the family’s quarry waslocated. He did, broke a blood vessel andsubsequently died some weeks later “after aprotracted and painful illness which he borewith Christian resignation”, on 13 October1844, aged 33 years (South Australian 15October 1844). His youngest son also diedsoon after.

Colonel Wyndham suggested through hisagent, Captain Bagot, that the widow,Elizabeth Ayliffe send all her children exceptthe youngest back to England for the boys to beeducated in the army, navy and the church.However on her father-in-law’s insistence thatan annuity of £70 as to be paid to the SouthAustralian Company in London and forwardedto the Bank of South Australia, Adelaide forlife. Mrs Hester Ayliffe died in 1850, followedby her husband in 1852.

Dr Henry was apprenticed as a medicalstudent to his father at the age of 13, butworked at clearing Belle Vue before marryingat 25 in March 1844. He returned to Englandin 1850 and studied at St Bartholomew’s andGuy’s Hospital for his diploma which heobtained with a credit after three years asagainst the usual five years. He stayed with hismother’s brother, Uncle Jinks who was agoldsmith, and returned to Australia in 1853.However the ship Anne Milne was wrecked offPortland, Victoria, and surviving thatexperience he proceeded to ride overland toAdelaide only to be confronted by a floodedMurray River which also had to be swum. Hewas a generous man, not only helping hissister-in-law with her large family but alsomany others. Eventually Dr Henry and his wifeEsther settled at Angaston (Hamilton 1978).

Meanwhile, Dr George Ayliffe’s eldest son,


Figure 3.5 Hills Railway showing the viaducts over Wattipparingga Creek. c.1910.SOURCE original from I.M. Ragless collection

Thomas Hamilton Ayliffe, had grown up,married and started his family of six bornbetween 1860 and 1871, and who wereregistered in Parkside, St Marys, Edwardstownor Sturt. (South Australian Genealogy andHeraldry Society, South Australian Births1842-1906) . In 1850 he leased Section 1047and between1856-1859 Sections 1073, 1074and 1080 all in the Mitcham Hills. Althoughleaving the district for the mid north, hemaintained an interest in the area owningand/or occupying Section 11, 1855-60 andSections 11-14, 1074 and 1080, 1857-58according to the Mitcham Council Assessmentbooks. During 1855-56 he offered the CentralRoad Board a year’s supply of road metal andoffered to let the quarry to them. This wasvery hard quartzite stone and one of thefirst quarries opened in the Mitcham District.It was situated on Section 12 near EyreBoulevard and having a seam of ‘blue-stone’near the surface was used for buildingpurposes for some of the earliest buildings.

Thomas took up the following contractswhich reflect how he worked hard to supporthis family:• 1855 April-July – carting from Adelaide

to the River Gilbert all the materials fora bridge.

• 1859 November-February 1860 – for makinga road from the South Para Bridge to jointhe district road leading to Gawler TownRailway Station.

• 1860 June-July – for supply of broken stonefor repairs between the Parklands and thesix mile post on the South East Road.

• 1860 November- January 1861 – for cutting,embanking and building culverts nearDouglas Hill. Completed by Thomas Masonbetween May and October 1861.

• 1866 November 30 – to form and metal80 chains of Port Road between SquattersInn and Hindmarsh.

• 1866 – making South Road• 1866 August – form and make a portion

of road between Glenelg and Adelaide alongTapley’s Hill.

• 1866 August – forming and metal about4 chain road near the 3 mile post.

• 1866 October – form bank and portionof the road near the Land of Promise andJohn Hindmarsh hotels.

• 1867 April – form portion of SouthRoad between the Forest Inn and HiltonRoad Hotel.

• 1868 January-May – supply and deliveryof 1000 cubic yards of hard road metal

broken to 21/2 in gauge between the 7th and12th mile posts on South Road.

(State Records, Central Road BoardContract books; GRG39/15/Vol. 1 pg 63 No346; Pg 279 No 559; pg 939 No 673; Pg 443No 723; Vol. 2 pg 22 No 765; pg 50 No 793;Vol. 4 pg 136 No 1862; Pg 141 No 1867.)

In spite of this steady work Thomas wentinsolvent in 1861. He was unable to accountfor his financial loss further than by statinghis loss in business occurred while he kept theGilbert Inn on the Gilbert between1854-1859(Hoad 1986). From January 1860 to the dateof the insolvency he occupied six sections atStockport, had a mail contract and fromOctober 1861 was pound-keeper. During thisperiod accounts are filed but except the poundbook, no records survived whatever. (StateRecords GRG66 Vol. 1 index to insolvencyNo 1030 Thomas Hamilton Ayliffe contractor,of Unley, 20 December 1861). In the 1870she went to New Zealand and in 1894 he wentprospecting in Western Australia where hedied the following year.

Meanwhile next door, on Section 14,Frederick Mitchell had named his farm GlenForbes after his wife Madelina Forbes. He hadsown 3/4 acre of wheat in June 1840 but it washalf destroyed by smut, but otherwise a goodcrop! His half acre of barley sown in July was amiddling crop and the crop of a 1/4-acre ofmaize planted in August was looking well.This area was fenced, an acre with a log fence,another by bank and ditch and 1/2-acre with abrush fence. Water was 12 feet deep with 6 of

water and there was a good wooden dwellinghouse (British Parliamentary Papers Vol. 71842-1844). Glen Forbes produced an incomeof £43.10.00 from this crop (State RecordsGRG66/6 insolvency file No. 51 1842).

Frederick Mitchell was declared insolventon 9 May 1842 and he agreed to transfer theproperty to Edward Emmett, (merchant andland agent) for £60 (RPA Land Application5860).

By 1842 Frederick and Madelina wereliving at Oak Hill, Morphett Vale where theirchildren were born between 1846 and 1851but no deaths or marriages are recorded forthis family (South Australian Genealogy andHeraldry Society, South Australian Births1842-1906).

The Section was mortgaged by Emmett tothe Bank of Australasia and subsequently to asyndicate of gentlemen, most of whom hadmade their fortune at the Burra copper mine inthe colony’s north in the 1840s (Auhl 1986; CT65/100). Subsequent sales of Section 14 werein 1864 to J.W. McDonald, 1877 to James Hilland 1902 to Ragless Brothers, all adjoiningland owners. During this time the section wasleased to the following tenants:• William Rowland 1853, with a three-room

dwelling• Henry Humberstone 1854• T.H. Ayliffe 1855-1859• Gold Company with David Bradford of

Marion and W. Kay 1862-1866• W.T. Shephard 1867-1877• T.W. Chalk 1881

31

Figure 3.6 Alfred and Irene Ragless nee Pobjoy on their wedding day, 5 October 1910.SOURCE Original held by M.E. Ragless


• Alf Pack 1882• Fred Hamblin 1883-1885; by this time

another room had been added to the cottage• R. Spence 1886• Williams 1888-1890• F.H. Edwards 1891(Mitcham Council Assessment Books)

Frederick George was the eldest son ofFrederick and Sarah Hamblin nee Grey born1866, within a year after his father’s arrivaland marriage in 1865. He was one of sixchildren, half of whom were to die before theygrew up. The Hamblin family moved fromNorth Adelaide to Goodwood Road between1873 and 1883. Father Frederick was a servant,storekeeper and publican and maybe usedSection 14 to run some stock on. One Sundayhis eldest daughter, thirteen-year-old Louise,and some other children endeavoured to drivesome loose horses away from one which wasfeeding, and going too near to it, Louise waskicked in the back of the head at her father’sfarm at Blackwood on 22 July 1883. Severaldays later she died at her parents’ house,South Road. An inquest was held at theFlagstaff Hotel and Mr James Duncan ofOrange Grove Sturt, the foreman, returnedthe verdict of accidental death (State RecordsGRG 1/44/172 Police Reports to the Coroner1882-1884 Vol. 2 1883 July 24; AdelaideObserver 28 July 1883).

Frederick George Hamblin in 1888married Mary Carter Chalk who was adaughter of Thomas William Chalk whorented Sections 14, 35 and 36 of 240 acresc.1881. The Chalk family lived on the northside of Sturt Road about half way betweenSouth and Marion Roads. Their fatherT.W. Chalk (Senior) died on the Forest CreekDiggings in Victoria in March 1852. (Register1 April 1852). Fifteen years later, his songained a contract to tar and paint the bridgeover the River on the Glenelg Road (StateRecords GRG 35/15 Vol. 3 Central Road BoardContract Book).

The cottage on Section 14 was nestledagainst a northern bank of the creek, inthe present day archery field, and a littledownstream is a scattering of stone and theskeletons of the orchard, citrus, quince, plumand a huge olive. The olive is the only treethriving, the others struggled on until the1980s suffering from neglect, before beingoverwhelmed by olive descendants.

Just beyond the orchard high up onthe southern bank is a row of sugar gums,marking the southern section boundary.Another clump is on the northern side of the

creek at the end of the track leading into theproperty, growing as though they never gotaround to planting them out. Maybe theydidn’t, as when the property changed handsfrom McDonald to James Hill in 1877, therewas a lot of talk about a fuel shortage. TheForestry Department was set up and wereencouraging land owners to plant trees; sugargums were one of the recommended varieties.

Isabel Ragless, born in 1905, rememberedas a little girl taking lunch up to her father whowas working on the cottage, possiblydemolishing it, and he showed her a sovereignhe had found. It was customary to plant a coinin a house for good luck when building it(Pers. com. Isabel Ragless 1980s).

Only a small corner of Section 13 near thecreek is included in Shepherds Hill RecreationPark; however, the northern boundary of thePark is bordered by Council reserves as abuffer to the Quinton Hill subdivision in theform of Saddle Hill Reserve and the largerSleeps Hill Reserve, both in the Hills FaceZone. This area may have been initially cleared

for cropping in the early days as it is very level,but by the 1920s the Ragless boys used it formotorbike circuit riding. Although there havebeen some council plantings, many areoverwhelmed by European tree suckers andlarge olive trees also dominate part of the area.

Dating from the 19th century evidence canbe found of some of the cottages, fencing, anorchard, irrigation works, at least one well,and reputedly the site of an illegal still. Thereare known sites of cottages within ShepherdsHill Recreation Park on Sections 36 and 14,irrigation infrastructure in the form of a dam,Humberstone’s still and a well on Section 36,along with possible evidence of irrigationalong the creek flats and a mineral extractionon Section 14.

Section 15

It was 1851 before a Land Grant was offeredfor Section 15, with adjoining Section 1045 tothe east and Section 33 diagonally to thewestward, taken up by the second colonialpostmaster, Henry Watts. He had already


Figure 3.7 Wandsworth now Springwood Close, Eden Hills c1940, home of Alf and IreneRagless and their family of six children. SOURCE G.B. Ragless photo

owned Section 63 since 1839, which he namedFiddown (where Mitsubishi is now). Howeverwithin a few months Watts had transferredSection 15 with other land to John Kelly,farmer of Sturt who had already taken upSection 1044 in 1850 and further addedSection 1043 in 1876-77. John and Maria Kellynee Beere married in 1849 and subsequentlyhad a family; the address of some of thechildren’s births varied between Upper Sturt,Sturt and Pallas Hill Sturt. It appears theremay have been three Kelly brothers, John,James and Richard. John appears to have hadthe largest family and their home still standsclose to the boundary of Sections 16 and 17,against the hills railway that was built later(Register Personal Notices Vol 1 1836-1859,Butler and Phillips 1989).

In 1864 the land was brought under theReal Property Act in the name of RichardKelly, farmer of Saddleworth; however, theMitcham Council Assessment Books showJames Kelly as the occupier and ownerbetween 1853 and 1867. In 1887 the land wastransferred from Richard Kelly to James Hillwhose family held it until transferring to theRagless family in 1902. However, RichardKelly continued to occupy it. In 1904 Part ofthe section was rented from the Ragless familyto 26-year-old Frederick C. Perkins who had ayoung family. Thirty six acres of the Section 15was transferred to Alfred Ragless in 1910,when he was the last of the Ragless family tomarry (Figure 3.6).

Alfred Ragless was the only one to moveaway from the clan, to Wistow, mortgagingthe property. He returned with his family with

the youngest on the way about 1919 andworked the area until the Great Depressionwith continuous mortgages forced him off theland. When Dick Ragless died in 1946 his tworemaining sisters sold the remaining 35 acresto Glen R. Hutchinson, a carrier of CherryGardens. He immediately mortgaged it and in1949 transferred it to Black Forest builderHerbert C.W. Ellis. By 1953 subdivision of thisportion of Eden Hills was under way. Alfred’spart of Section 15 was eventually transferredto F.J.B. Scriven, a grazier of O’Halloran Hill,through a mortgage from the Synod of theChurch of England in 1932 and when it wasdischarged in 1944, Roy Johnston Woolcocktook it up (Land Records Application 5664;CT 499/98; CT 1019/123-124; CT 1114/111).

In 1919, 21-year-old Ena Ragless wouldwalk up over the ridge from her homeBallantrae to Eden Hills Railway Station eachday to catch the train to Adelaide to work. Likemany others she would change her shoes at thestation, leaving the old ones there during theday. One evening walking down hill she wasapproached by a man who tried to snatch herhandbag. She took off and arrived homebreathless to relate her experience to herfamily. Her young brother Bob took thestory to school and a few days later the policecame making enquiries about any strangers inthe district as there had been an increase ofrobberies. Meanwhile Bob and his cousinGordon had been exploring along Walker’sCreek and had noticed some washing hangingon the trees near some caves. The local policechecked out the location and apprehendedtwo well-known safe breakers, Alfred Dykes

and James Phillips, both with several aliases,already with interstate convictions. Withina week they were before the court and sentto gaol for twelve months with hard labour(Pers. Com. Ena and Gordon Ragless;Advertiser 16, 17 September 1919; Observer20 September 1919).

Further subdivision occurred with post-war development and subsequently in 1955the Minister of National Pleasure Resortsacquired parts of Sections 14, 15 and 35 fromMr Woolcock. (Draft Management Plan ofRecreation Parks of the Adelaide Foothills(Department of Environment and Heritage,National Parks and Wildlife 1985)

Section 35

Captain William Detmar Cook of the Eden andof 5 Union Row, Peckham, County Surrey,England took up the Land Grant of Section35sth in August 1838. He had two sons HenryGordon and William Detmar, and threedaughters Ann, Eliza and Clara. Henry Gordonand his sisters built a modest Georgian stylehouse into the side of Shepherd’s Hill from thelimestone excavated from it. The undergroundrooms consisted of a cellar in which to keepthe dairy products and to set the milk. Thisproperty was called Glen Gordon after HenryGordon Cook and the house still stands inKinedena Ave being possibly the oldest housein Eden Hills (Figure 3.8). No record can befound of Clara Cook but Eliza died in 1853aged 42 years. At that time the first CouncilAssessment recorded the property as having afour room cottage and 80 acres at Sturt Hills.Ann of Sturt aged 58 years died a decade laterand Henry Cook died aged 62 in 1871(Application 16413; Mitcham CouncilAssessment Books).

One of the first things Mitcham Councildid after it was formed in May 1853 was toplan to form another road to the hills up theridge from South Road through MrsShephard’s and H. Gordon Cook’s properties.They protested because they would berequired to erect fences which would “be liableto be broken through the carelessness of thepeople driving the bullock drays” and for MrCook “a great deal of trouble in ploughing byforming some acute angles” (State Records,GRG24/6/1854/676). The road was desirablebecause of the straight pull up the hill whereasthe alternative Bulls Creek Road past Mitchamwas winding as well as steep. Mrs AnnShephard lived at Winsor Farm on Section 34on what has since become known as Sturtbraeon Bellevue Drive, Bellevue Heights.

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Figure 3.8 Glen Gordon, Section 35sth, Kinedana Ave, Eden Hills. c.1954.SOURCE Original held by R. and A. Hunt


In 1877 the property was transferred to50-year-old James Hill, merchant, and broughtunder the Real Property Act (CT 209/25). In1884 it was leased for three years to RobertSpence with Section 15 the following year (CT273/35). This was the year that Robert’s wifeChristina gave birth to a daughter, Jessie, atSaddleworth, but no other reference to thefamily can be found in South Australianbiographical records. Between 1894 and 1902the property was owned by James and HelenHill’s four children as tenants-in-common.After their father died in1901, as did RichardRagless, they sold it to the five unmarriedTonsley Raglesses. Section 35 south was thenput with Section 15 to become Alfred Ragless’sshare of the property when he married in 1910.

Between 1910-1917, Alfred Ragless and hisfamily increasing to six moved to a farm nearWistow in the Hundred of Strathalbyn bymortgaging Wandsworth, part Section 35sthand Section 15, to the Church of England until1928. However, the land at Wistow wasworked out and trace elements were only justbeing introduced to improve pasture. Middle-aged Alf either wasn’t receptive to theseadvances or couldn’t afford them andmortgaged this property in 1914 and rented toF.W. Wood. On returning he built a red brickhouse close to Walker’s Creek and on theboundaries of Sections 35sth and 36sth. Inspite of working hard, planting potatoes andmilking cows, activities his wife and growingfamily could help with, Alf could not supporthis debts and family.

The land boom after World War I and thedevelopment of Colonel Light Gardens for thereturned soldiers, the first public housingdevelopment in SA, encouraged speculation inland nearby. Cars were replacing horses andthe demand for hay was diminishing, freeingup the former hay paddocks. This allowed theboundaries of suburban living to be expandedinto the former rural areas. By the mid 1920sthe boom was declining and the GreatDepression was beginning.

Alf and his family had to leaveWandsworth and appeal to the church andkindly relations to support the children for ashort time while organizing rentalaccommodation in nearby Edwardstown.Alfred worked as a labourer for his unmarriedsiblings for the rest of his life and his wife wasan active member of the St Marys Church ofEngland also until well into her eighties.

With both properties mortgaged, hisunmarried brother and sisters placed a caveaton the joint share of Section 35sth until 1925when they released it to sell portions of it todeveloper Bill Watson and six acres to investorA.C. Branson.

Section 36sth

A Land Grant was issued to George Johnson in1838 for Section 36 south. He transferred itSection 36sth in 1841 to James WilliamMacdonald of Adelaide who arrived in 1839.He was a grandson of Lord Macdonald, whowas made an Irish peer in the reign of Williamthe Fourth. He was born in the year 1811. He

settled at The Sturt, which possibly refers tothis section as the area was generally known asThe Sturt just as St Marys on the Sturtreferred to the Anglican Church a mile furthernorth than Section 36sth. There is anindication of a house in 1846 when he took amortgage that was discharged in 1853, thenanother until 1857. This was located just southof Tonsley Court Flats (Lands Dept OldSystem Application 7066). He had spentseveral years at Port Lincoln as magistrate andheld acting positions of Colonial Treasurerand Registrar General before being appointedCommissioner of Crown Lands, in 1846 (StateRecords GRG24/4 and 6 Correspondence ofthe Colonial Secretary’s Office 1841-1856). MrMacdonald, after acting as Visiting Magistratein the North, was appointed Magistrate at theBurra, an office he held for many years. Hewas then elected to the office of Commissionerof Insolvency, duties which he discharged forfour years before resigning, and living at TheSturt on his retiring allowance. He residedthere till 1880, when his friends advised himto go home, and he lived in the suburbs ofLondon till the time of his death at the end of1881 (Loyau 1882 (Fac. 1978):161-162).

A Ha Ha was a trench, popular in Ireland,dug to provide an uninterrupted view acrossthe estate and yet impeding stock fromcrossing the property’s boundaries. It isbelieved that in the early days the boundarytrench was dug around Section 36sth underthe influence of Irishman, James Macdonald.Aloes were planted along the edge of the HaHa on the eastern boundary of Section 36sthhas eroded deep down the steep hill. It canalso be found along the southern boundaryand another trench is remembered being inevidence on the north side before thewidening of Ayliffe’s Road in the late 1960s.

By 1853 Mr McDonald was renting the 80acre section to W. Mortlock who was a tenantuntil 1855 with a four-room cottage which wassituated near the corner of South andShepherds Hill Roads. It would appear thatWilliam Mortlock actually lived on theproperty as some of his children’s birthplacesare given as Sturt. He had taken up anOccupation Licence for country on EyrePeninsula around Port Lincoln in 1843, laterhe entered parliament in 1868 before retiringto Medindie where he died in 1884 (Casanova1992; Baillie 1978; Coxon et al. 1985).

Tenants who followed were:• Frederick Walton 1858• Richard Kelly 1859• David Bradford 1864


Figure 3.9 Various letterheads of RichardRagless.

SOURCE Originals held by M.E. Ragless

Middle aged Frederick Walton had a briefcareer as a publican at Bugle Ranges forseveral years followed between 1855 to1858 atthe Kangaroo Inn, on Section 61, OnkaparingaRoad [later South Road] near St Marys (Hoad1986). He married for a second time within ayear of the death of his first wife in 1880, butfour years later he died aged 69 at Glanville.

Richard Kelly may have been related to theKelly family who lived at the headwaters of thecreeks which runs through the reserve. TheBiographical Index lists several Richard Kellysliving nearby at the time (Statton 1986).

David Bradford was a young married manhaving just completed his family of four or fivewith Mary Ann nee Daw. The family had beenaway for a short time near Finnis but by 1863was been back in the Marion district where hisfather was established. By 1866 he also rentedSection 14 but the following year saw thedeath of his two youngest babies.

All three tenants may have been grazingstock on this section because of the availabilityof water, shade and the unsuitability forcropping because of the creek runningthrough (South Australian Births 1842-1906;South Australian Marriages, Registrations1842-1916; South Australian DeathsRegistrations 1842 to 1915. South AustralianGenealogy and Heraldry Society).

It was probably during this time that a HaHa trench was dug around the section, aswhen it was sold in 1877, the property becamepart of the greater holdings of James Hill andsubsequent owners.

Humberstone’s StillIt appears from births, deaths and marriagesrecords that William and Mary Humberstonehad settled on Section 42 [on the northernside of Daws Road between South Road andWinston Avenue] by 1843. William wasformerly a Senior Warrant Officer of the RoyalNavy and had an adult family of at least threesons and four daughters.

Between 1849 and 1854 South Road wasformed or built with stone from Ayliffe’sQuarry. A William Humberstone was firstcarting the stone in 1850 and by June 1854had completed the Sturt Bridge on SouthRoad. This may have been William senior[c.1785-1856] who would have been 65 yearsold, or his son William Henry. (SAPP1851Central Road Board Returns; State Records,Central Road Board Register of Letters, GRG39/2/242).

William Henry was rather enterprisingand in 1859 took out a distilling licence beingin the business of winemaker and distiller;

however, in March 1863 he appeared in court,convicted of having an illicit still (Register 5March 1863). The site of this still, which isnothing more than a gutter in the north bankof the Wattiparringga Creek on Section 36sth,had been pointed out to the author as a childby her elderly father (Pers. Com. Ken Ragless).Research has added to this story by reason thatWilliam’s older brother Henry was rentingadjoining Section 14. Section 36sth was wellwooded and possibly Aboriginals were stillcamping in the area and a wisp of smoke onthe generally unoccupied section would notarouse suspicion. However, when the customsofficer visited Humber Villa on Section 42Henry watched him “breaking down the walland doing other damage, wantonly andwilfully pouring out 600 gallons of wine intothe deponent’s garden also and seizing andcarrying off 100 gallons of distilled spirits anda saccharometer and hydrometer and a hostof other apparatus and materials used ina distillery besides a horse and cart and on 18November these articles were sold byauctioneer James Hamilton Parr, although todeponent’s knowledge no court had declaredthem forfeited!” (Register 5 March 1863).

There is no record of occupation onSection 36sth between 1869-1877, althoughJ.W. McDonald may have lived there as after heretired, his address is given as Sturt beforereturning to England.

James Hill, the merchant, immediatelyrented out the property. Again Thomas Chalktook up the opportunity and continued to rentuntil 1890 in spite of the property being soldagain in1881 to John Reid and H.Y. Sparks ofGlenelg, followed in 1882 by Frederick Escourt

Bucknall, Gentleman of Semaphore. Bucknallat the height of his career had made his moneyin the brewing business and suburban landspeculation. He was Mayor of Hindmarsh1880-1883 and parliamentary member of theHouse of Assembly for West Torrens, 1881-1887 (Coxon et al.1985). Section 36sth wasonly an investment for Bucknall, and hesubsequently was to lose much when theCommercial Bank crashed in 1887. Thissection was sold to Thomas Playford and theBank of Australasia.

Richard and Eliza Ragless with their fivechildren aged between ten years and aboutten months, moved to Tonsley [Section 63,where Mitsubishi car manufacturer is now]in 1869 from Willochra north of Quorn, forthe benefit of their children’s education.Over the next twenty years Richard developedthe property into a prize-winning farm anda chaff-cutting business.

35

Figure 3.10 Ballantrae broad acres Section 36sth c.1910. SOURCE I.M. Ragless Collection

Figure 3.11 Ballantrae homestead and Chris, Jane and their family; Section 36sth c.1910.SOURCE I.M. Ragless Collection)


He bought adjoining sections of land andmore on the other side of South Road on theplains, and then looked to the hills. In themiddle of 1889 Richard bought Section 36sth.A road had been planned over the ridgethrough Sections 36sth, 35sth and 14, from theplains to the hills, when the area was surveyed.Mitcham District Council decided to open theroad, however Richard Ragless objected“because it was park” (State Records, SurveyorGeneral’s Office GRG35/2/1891/1260 andSouth Australian Government Gazette 6 Augustand 28 Oct 1891). Certainly many large treesstill dotted the landscape, particularly alongthe creek lines. Section 36 south survivedparticularly well possibly because it was notpermanently occupied or the owners oroccupiers were not totally dependant on itsnatural resources for an income.Coincidentally 1891 was the year that the firstnational park in South Australia atGovernment Farm, Belair was proclaimed.The road was eventually closed in 1905(CT678/120; South Australian GovernmentGazette 26 January 1905).

When youngest son Alfred turned 25 in1893 the property was transferred to RaglessBrothers, who were by now all involved in thehay growing and chaff-cutting business (LTOCT 82/185; Ragless 1988). In October 1897Christopher Ragless, second son of Richardand Eliza, was the first of their children tomarry, to Jane Maxwell, daughter of well-known Scottish sculptor William Maxwelland wife Isabella who lived several miles northat Woodlands, South Road, Edwardstown[where the Castle Plaza shopping centre isnow]. Section 36sth, Section 14 and pt Section

35 was worked by Christopher as his own andhe built a modern villa from local bluestone,designed by his wife’s architect brother, andsupervised by cousin Tom Ragless. It wassituated on the site of the Tonsley Court Flatsnear the corner of Ayliffe’s and Shepherds HillRoads, St Marys.

Richard Ragless died aged 82 in 1901and Tonsley was divided between his children,all except Christopher still unmarried;although the eldest, Charles, was aboutto be engaged and eventually the youngest sonAlfred married. R. Ragless and Sons continuedto operate because they had the hill countryand perhaps because they replaced the haypaddocks with vineyards and almond treesand sheep could have been a complementary

income. They registered a sheep brand ‘RS’in red paint off the ribs for six sheep in 1903!This brand was cancelled in 1906 and replacedwith ‘R’ in black paint placed on top ofshoulders for 300 sheep (South AustralianGovernment Gazette 20 January 1903, 30 April1903, 31 May 1906). Charles and Christopherwere to have their own sheep brands, ‘R+’and ‘R-’.

Chris and Jane Ragless named theirproperty (which included Sections 36sth andwestward, Section 64, making a total of 160acres) Ballantrae, perhaps because Chrisfancied himself as the ‘Master of Ballantrae’,the title of Robert Louis Stevenson’s book setin the Ballantrae area of Ayrshire, Scotlandwhere coincidentally the Maxwell Clan werelocated. Between 1898 and 1910 six childrenwere born to Chris and Jane including twinswho died when only a few hours old. Theeldest Max, inherited his maternalgrandfather’s artistic talent and coupled withthe surrounding inspiring scenery and hismother’s encouragement and connections, hebecame a well-known 20th century Australianlandscape artist. Taking out a mortgage withthe Savings Bank of SA at the end of 1909 for£200, the property was described as having a“stone and brick house of 6 rooms, large GIshed, implement shed 60'x20' of concrete andiron, stalled stable, man’s room, trap shed,about 20 acres of orchard and vines, landfenced, portion of the land is rough hilly landtimbered. The western portion or fairly evenquality and suitable for fruit trees. Valued at£7.10.00 per acre, including rough country.Total value £1 200.” (Savings Bank of SA


Figure 3.12 Southdown sheep, Chris Ragless’s prize winning flock, at Ballantrae c.1920s.SOURCE I.M. Ragless Collection

Application for Loan 6184).On Section 64 bounded by South, Sturt

and Shepherds Hill Roads which later becameBurbank, Christopher Ragless planted it withvines and dug a dam which caught water fromShephards Hill. He also laid a six-inch brasspipe under the road to water an almondorchard south of the homestead where theWomen’s Memorial Playing fields are now.Closer to the creeks between Wattiparringgaand Walker’s Creeks a peach orchard wasestablished, grafted onto almond tree stock,bounded by Brown Brandis almond trees andolive trees. In fact, a little upstream, he alsoattempted an almond tree nursery along thecreek flats. However, the possums and parrotswere a constant problem. He held a licence toshoot possums and set a cracker machine toward off the birds.

Near the Ayliffe’s Road entrance to thereserve is a large hollow with a counter hollownear the creek. This may have been made byearly tenants but was certainly maintained byChris to be filled with water for the dairy cowsand stock held close to the homestead.Dairying was an enterprise that was notsuccessful; later he turned to sheep whichneeded less labour and made more profit. In1922 he purchased a Cletrac Tractor for hisorchard and vineyard, believed to be the firstsouth of Adelaide (Personal Notes of C.H.Ragless c1948).

In 1928 Chris, Jane and their youngestdaughter Isabel joined a delegation of about600 people of Scottish descent from aroundAustralia and did a world tour. On his return,Chris gave his attention to establishing a

Southdown sheep stud. They had thecharacteristics of early maturity, no horns,short wool and being very hardy. They werethe ideal variety to roam the hills and creeks ofBallantrae thriving on the scant and shortfeed, whilst the mutton retained good flavour.The breed was developed in the southerndowns of England inhabiting the chalk hills ofNorth Foreland to Dorchester and intoSomersetshire. The breed was noted for itsfreedom from disease. Chris hoped to breakinto the overseas export market and reputedlywon prices at the Royal Adelaide Show.

After World War I there was a buildingboom and many of the surrounding propertieswere sold for subdivision. The most dramaticarea was Colonel Light Gardens to housereturned soldiers and demonstrate a new townplanning concept of the Garden Suburb. Thisinflux of young families and their pet dogswithin walking distance of the rural propertiesand the onset of the Great Depression had agreat impact on the established lifestyles. Oneof Chris’s cousins Fred captured the problemin the following lines of verse.

Following The Hounds

The pastoralists keep both dogs and sheep,In sunny South Australia.One a welcome source of wealth,The other oftimes a failure.

The Sturtbrae Farm, near Shephards Hill,On prize stud sheep depended,With the greatest care and constant watch,Were well and ably tended.

But lo one night two hungry dogs,From Lights Gardens bent on straying,

When all mankind were hushed in sleep,Now, was their time for slaying.

We humans steal, our wants denied,Then why poor doggie blame,If poorly fed, and left to roam,His wants would be the same.

Miss Mills who saw those hunting houndsAt half past six next morningTelephoned to BallantraeTo give her neighbours warning.

Some sheep were dead, and others bled,From ghastly wounds they’d torn,Their hunger had been satisfiedBut the cost, the owners mourn.

Two women followed in motor carsThose neglected roving hounds,Right to their respective homes,Within Colonel Light Gardens bound.

The local policeman then took charge,With power to enforce the law,And the owner of that kelpie,Caressed his scalp no more.

To those who own such faithful animalsI say – treat them well and good,Although a dog is but a dog,They must have ample food.

Fred B. Ragless c.1930s

Tragedy struck in 1932 when Chris andJane’s youngest son Bob was killed in amotorbike accident at Edwardstown not farfrom home. Max married later that year andsettled nearby and gradually took over themanagement of the property in between beingan artist. Ena went to work interstate andChris, Jane and Isabel continued to live in thebluestone villa. Chris died in 1950 and his wifeJane three years later while visiting Ena inMelbourne.

Fifty years later Miss Mills of Sturtbrae,Bellevue Heights, then in her 94th year,received an OBE and was still president of theSA Women’s Memorial Playing Fields Trust!Her parents had settled in the district in the1920s when her father was elected toparliament. May trained as a teacher and hersister Margaret as a nurse. (State Library, SRG255, SA Women’s Memorial Playing FieldsTrust Incorporated).

THE ENVIRONMENT

At the time of European colonisation most ofthe Mount Lofty Ranges were covered in denseforest. The typical vegetation of the westernfoothills would have included the Grey Box(Eucalyptus microcarpa) and Blue Gums(Eucalyptus leucoxylon) associated withMelaleuca lanceolata, Allocasuarina verticillata,

37

Figure 3.13 View over the Wattiparringga Creek, c.1990.SOURCE Mitcham Local Heritage Collection

Figure 3.14 GIS Map showing the locations of sites referred to below.SOURCE Robert Keane, GIS consultant to the HFZCHP


Acacia pycnantha, Bursaria spinosa, Dodonaeaviscose and the grasses Danthonia spp., Stipaspp. and Themeda triandra (National Parks andWildlife 1992:9). A general view over theWattiparringga Creek is shown in Figure 3.13.

Eucalyptus microcarpa are still numerous inthe park today, together with several otherEucalyptus spp., including South AustralianBlue Gums (Eucalyptus leucoxylon) and RiverRed gums (Eucalyptus canaldulensis) along thecreeks. Most of the area was cleared forgrazing and many of the larger trees which arenow present have regenerated since grazingceased in the 1950s. There is also a massiveinvasion of weed species in the under storey.Invading weeds include European olive (Oleaeuropaea), Boneseed (Chrysanthemoidesmonilifera), Cotton Bush (Asclepiasrotundifolia), South African Daisy (Seneciopterophorus), Blackberry (Rubus sp.) andBroom (Genista monspessulana). Olives, inparticular, have invaded most of the culturalsites surveyed, usually causing some damage.

HERITAGE SURVEY

The cultural heritage survey of Shepherds HillRecreation Park included each of the Sectionsreferred to above and identified on Figure 3.1,

i.e. Hundred of Adelaide, Pt Sections 13, 14,15, 35, 36.

The objectives of the survey were:• To identify and record the locations of

historic sites identified by Maggy Raglessand to record the GPS positions of theselocations for the Hills Face Zone CulturalHeritage GIS database.

• To identify themes and cultural sites whichmay warrant further research.

• To identify the potential cultural tourism inthe park.

Consultation

Meetings were held prior to the survey withMaggy Ragless, to discuss the history of thesurvey area and with Terry Gregory, SturtDistrict Ranger, to discuss currentmanagement issues and to inform him aboutthe survey. The history of these Pt. Sectionshas been well researched and documented byMaggy Ragless and the staff at the MitchamHeritage Research Centre. A brochuredescribing the site has been prepared forvisitors to the park.

Field survey

The survey team was led by Maggy Ragless,who was very familiar with the park andwhose family, as described above, had ownedmuch of the survey area during the first halfof the twentieth century. The survey teamcomprised five volunteers from the FlindersUniversity Archaeology Society. The teammet at the Shepherds Hill Reserve car park(off Ayliffes Road) and followed the mainwalking trail along Viaduct Creek. Individualmembers of the group were responsible forphotography, site records, GPS recordingand photographic records.

The team was small and transects werenot attempted. The team concentrated onrecording the sites that were identified byMaggy Ragless. All locations where any formof historical cultural impact had occurred weredocumented.


Figure 3.15 Section of dam wall and the dam on Pt. Section 36, view 340°.SOURCE HFZCHP 2002

Figure 3.16 The Ha Ha, an Irish fenceline using a ditch planted with aloes, view 20°.SOURCE HFZCHP 2002

Weather: Cold and cloudy, although therewere only a few light showers.

Vegetation: The density of the vegetationvaried, but much of the survey area wasinaccessible. In some areas the dense olivegroves proved difficult to penetrate andsome olives had disturbed several of thearchaeological sites.

Terrain: The terrain varied fromundulating to steep; the reserve is cut byWattiparringga Creek and Walker’s Creek.

Heritage survey results

The locations of all sites recorded bysurvey were entered into the Hills Face ZoneCultural Heritage GIS Database and shownon Figure 3.14.

Small dam and dam wallA small dam was built by Christopher Raglesson his property, Ballantrae, Pt. Section 36,in the early twentieth century. The dam areais currently being used as a bike jump andis barely recognisable as a dam, althougha small section of dam wall remains, referto Figure 3.15.

Brick-lined wellA brick-lined well was recorded Pt.Section 36.The date of this well is not known. It is nowbeing damaged by the roots of olive trees andis completely covered by the low branches ofolives. There are records of the well beingcleaned in 1910 and it was used until 1920when it dried up. This event may have beenassociated with the disruption of a creekfurther upstream where the viaduct wasconstructed.

The Ha HaA long ditch with aloes growing along theditch forms the boundary of Sections 35 and36. This alternative fence line dated to the19th century is described above. It is called aHa Ha and is thought to have been introducedfrom Ireland as an inexpensive form of sheepfencing (Figure 3.16).

Sluice gatesThis stone and iron structure was constructedacross Viaduct Creek in the early twentiethcentury by Christopher Ragless. It is locatedon the boundary of Pt. Section 13 and 36 andwas incorporated into the boundary fencebetween the Pt Sections. There was a metalswinging sluice gate between two cementpillars, one on either side of the creek. Today,only the cement pillars remain (Figure 3.17).

Humberstone’s stillToday this site is an inconspicuous hollowand associated mound, with no evidence

of its nefarious past (refer to Figure 3.18).This was referred to above where Humbstonehid his illegal still. The land was leased byMr Humberstone, who manufactured illegalspirits in what was, at the time, an out-of-the-way valley some distance from the city.His activities were, however, discovered and hewas arrested by the police and his illegal stilldestroyed.

Scattered shaleA wide scatter of slatey-shale rock thoughtto have had cultural associations with thenineteenth century colonists was recorded onthe boundary of Sections 13 and 14. This

scatter had been previously described asremnants of an early stone cottage. The surveyteam felt that this was highly unlikely and thata more likely explanation is that they formedstone irrigation channels supplying water tothe nearby orchard, now comprised of a fewaged trees. Although no house site was locatedin the immediate vicinity it was felt that oneshould be found if a more detailed survey ofthe area was undertaken.

Orchard and irrigation channelsRemnants of an orchard and irrigationchannels were recorded. These were adjacentto the scatter of rocks described above and

39

Figure 3.17 Sluice gate and boundary betweenPt Sections 13 and 36, view 195°.

SOURCE HFZCHP 2002

Figure 3.18 The site of Humberstone’s illegal still. SOURCE HFZCHP 2002


associated with a track leading up the hill,a small quarry and a cleared area with a smallplantation of Eucalyptus sp. A plum and citrustree remain in the orchard. No house sitewas located.

Quarry 1A small quarry probably dating from thenineteenth century was recorded close tothe quarry and irrigation channels referredto above.

Cultivated Eucalypt sp. 1 (sugar gums)A plantation of seven trees planted in a semi-circle is located close to the orchard, track anda small quarry described above.

Cultivated Eucalypt sp. 2 (sugar gums)This is a row of cultivated trees along theboundary of Pt Sections 14 and 36. There wasa critical fuel shortage during the 1870s andmany trees of this species were plantedbecause they were fast growing. A booklet wasprinted at the time called the South AustralianTree Planting Guide.

Quarry 2A small stone quarry.

Site of Manning HouseIt is known that a Manning House was erectedon this site on Pt. Section 14. All that remainsare two benches cut into the side of the hill.

Artefact scatterA number of small artefacts, glass and ceramicshards, were identifed eroding from thesurface of the track and four steps leading tothe site of the Manning house. It is likely thatthis was a household dump.

CONCLUSIONS

Shepherd’s Hill Reserve provides evidenceof complex layers of material culture derivedfrom a diversity of activities dating from theearliest days of the South Australian colony.Although it was cleared and farmed duringthe nineteenth and early twentieth century,it is now a protected landscape and valuedfor its natural heritage qualities. This islargely an outcome of the protectionprovided by the Hills Face Zone legislationand its management by National Parks andWildlife SA.

This research did not provide acomprehensive survey of the entire area. Thesurvey benefited, however, from being led by adescendant of the earlier owners with anintimate knowledge of the area and a passionfor local history. The settlement history of thesurvey area had been thoroughly researchedand, as stated above, it was this research thatinformed the predictive model on which thesurvey was based. No new areas of culturalsignificance were identified by the surveyteam. However, additional sites might belocated with an expansion of the survey area.

The following is recommended.• The area around the several historic sites

have been damaged by olives. Many ofthe olives have now been cleared, butmaintenance in the vicinity of these sitesneeds to be ongoing.

• National Parks and Wildlife shouldexamine the dam site and protect it fromfurther damage by mountain bike riders.

• Two areas should be surveyed in detail:(i) the complex that includes the stonescatter, orchard, quarry, track andirrigation channels, and ii) the area aroundthe Manning House site and what appearsto be an associated rubbish dump. Thewell should also be investigated and thecontents recorded.

NOTE

The heritage survey in this report wascompleted by Pam Smith.


4 Sleeps Hill QuarriesSusan Piddock and Chris Bender

HE DRAMATIC SCARS on the hills aboveT Mitcham have been visible from theAdelaide plains for most of the twentiethcentury. It is estimated that there are 64quarries faces in the Mitcham Hills, only 6 kmfrom the centre of Adelaide (pers. com.Mitcham Local History Officer). Quarryingcommenced in the Mitcham district during thefirst decades of the colony and of all thequarries, the Sleeps Hill Quarries are the mostextensive. They provided stone for buildingthe Adelaide to Melbourne railways, SouthAustralian roads and harbour works and manylocal projects (Drew 2000:34).

The Sleeps Hill Quarry was selected for aheritage survey based on the extent to whichremnants of the quarrying operations remainvisible and because of its close links with theHills Railway Line (see Report 1, this volume).The quarries are located on Sections 1080,1074, 1143, 1146, 1147, and 1148, Hundred ofAdelaide and are entered on the State HeritageRegister (Item 14783). Twelve quarry faces arelocated on the northern and western faces ofthe Mitcham Hills and are shown in Figure 4.1.Extensive and less visible quarry faces are alsolocated at the top of Sleeps Hill betweentunnels no. 1 and no. 2.

The Sleeps Hill Quarries illustrate a typicalpre-War quarry. Many quarries such as SleepsHill were no longer viable following WorldWar II, largely because of changed methods ofoperation and changing attitudes to workersafety. These changes are reflected in the landtenure documents and lease agreements withthe South Australian Railways dating to thelate 1940s, and are recorded in the archives ofthe Sleeps Hill Quarry Ltd and the AdelaideQuarries Ltd (Boral Archives).

Today it is possible to interpret the historyof quarrying technologies and methods fromthe historical archaeology remaining at thesite. The site is one of the few unfilled or intactquarries remaining from this era and ispublicly accessible with walking tracks andsignage forming part of an interpretative trailunder the management of the Department ofPrimary Industries and Resources SA (2000).It is also already well documented (Deer 1999;Drew 2000, Wells 1995).

An aim of this study is to document andinterpret those features remaining in thelandscape as significant examples of South

Australia’s quarrying heritage and to recordthis information on the Hills Face ZoneCultural Heritage GIS Database.


The Belair Reserve, of which the Sleeps HillQuarries are a part, was initially given over tosmall scale farmers and absentee landholders.Sleeps Hill was named after Samuel Sleep, ashepherd employed by the South AustraliaCompany who owned much of the land in thisarea immediately following the arrival of thefirst colonists (Kochergen 2003:3). Thequarries at Sleeps Hill were opened up by A.H.Birt in 1916 and were taken over by AdelaideQuarries Ltd in 1919. This followed the closureof a quarry at Burra in the same year and theSleeps Hill Quarries became a major source of

ballast for the railways (pers. com. JanetCallen). During the 1920s the Sleeps HillQuarries were one of the leading producersof crushed rock in South Australia andemployed up to 100 men (Drew 2000:34).The Depression, however, seriously curtailedactivity at the quarry and work ceased in the1950s following the World War II (Kochergen2003:3). A small private quarry near themouth of the former No 1 Railway Tunnelappears to have been in operation in themid-twentieth century but closed at thesame time as the main quarries in the 1950s(Callen 2002).

The lower outcrops of quartzite wereworked first, and then the quarrymen movedeastwards and higher up the valley (Drew2000:36). The quarry was worked by cuttingsmall ledges into the quarry face; these ledges

Figure 4.1 Sleeps Hill quarries and walking trails.source Primary Industries and Resources, South Australia 2000

41

Figure 4.3 Adelaide Quarry Company siding at Sleeps Hill, early twentieth century.SOURCE Boral Resources Archives

Figure 4.2 The Sleeps Hill Quarry Siding, Plant and storage buildings. Early twentieth century. SOURCE Boral Archives, State Library of SA

Sleeps Hill Quarries

were up to 40 metres high. This enabled the‘powder monkey’ to drill holes with acompressed air drill and insert dynamite. Theholes were then fired in unison by electricaldetonation, bringing down the stone. The facewas then made safe by barring down any loosestone. Large stone blocks were further reducedby blasting and then broken manually. Thestone was then loaded into side-tipping railtrucks and transported to the storage binsabove the crushing plant. The stone from thehigher quarries was dumped from the trucksinto a bin and reloaded into 6 ton trucksoperated on an incline track. As the loadedtruck descended to the crushing plant theempty truck was pulled up to the quarry areaby means of a wire cable (Drew 2000:6; Bender2004:116).

The two crushing plants had been erectedon either side of the valley in the 1920s andwere connected by a siding to the adjacentAdelaide to Melbourne railway line (Figure4.2). Rock was fed into a primary jaw crusherand then into a ‘secondary gyratory crusher’, itwas then elevated to screens where it wasgraded and deposited into divided binsaccording to size. “Crushed rock from thenorthern crushing plant was conveyed to thestorage bin by a conveyor belt supported by atrestle framework” (Drew 2000:36). In 1924 aflying fox had been installed to handle large

blocks of stone for use in breakwaters (Drew2000:36). Although no images of this structurehave been identified, it would have beensimilar to the flying fox that carried stone fromthe Reynella Quarry (refer to Collins andWoods, Volume 6, this series).

A Schedule of Plant and Machinery at theSleeps Hill Quarry was included in aMemorandum of Agreement between The

South Australian Railways Commissioner andthe Sleeps Hill Quarry Ltd dated August 1,1940 (Boral Archives, State Library of SouthAustralia). This documented the quarry plantat that time and included among the largeritems:• Stone crushers – 1 ‘Bigelow’ by J. Martin

and Co. with 28" x 33" front jaws and 32" x32" back jaws.


Figure 4.4 View of Sleeps Hill showing the new railway line and tunnel under construction(the centre line). The 1879 railway and tunnel are on the right, with a traincoming out of the tunnel. The line leading to the crushing plant is in the bottom,left corner. C.1918.

SOURCE State Library of South Australia, B19406

Figure 4.5 GIS map showing sites mentioned in the Sleeps Hill Quarry Survey.SOURCE Robert Keane, GIS consultant

1 ‘Jacques’ 24" x 14".• Elevator – complete with buckets.• Conveyors – 1 with 126' of 15" rubber belt

and 1 tripper (self-propelling).1 with 70' of 15" rubber belt.

• Bins – with 18 delivery chutes –2 for sand, 1 for _”, 3 for _”, 12 for ballast.

• Buildings – Office, store and chaff shed, 2blacksmith’s shops (1 out of repair), stable, 2shelter sheds, 1 open shed – all of galvanisediron. 1 air compressor shed. 1 shed ordwelling house.

• Concrete tanks – 1 large and 4 small.Many smaller items of plant were also

listed and included electric motors,compressors, screens and ‘small plant’.

This schedule of plant provides us withinformation about the products produced atthe quarry, and in particular, a description ofthe bins. The stone was used mainly for railballast, road foundations and was grounddown for sand. Once it was processed it wasloaded onto trains from large concrete bins atthe railway siding, these bins and the sidingare illustrated in Figure 4.2.

Work on the Adelaide to Nairne railwaybegan in 1879 and the railway passed what wasto become the Sleeps Hill Quarries along theirwestern border. The railway line originallypassed through tunnel no. 1 on the westernside of the quarries (see Figure 4.1), it thenpassed through the extensive quarries on topof Sleeps Hill, before entering tunnel no. 2 (seethe report, The Hills Railway, this volume).

In 1909 Sleeps Hill quarry received aprincipal goods siding (Figure 4.3 and 4.4).

There was a group of tracks opposite tunnelno. 1, heading in an easterly direction and theyserved the Sleeps Hill Quarries (Sallis 1998:38,54). It was not originally planned to have astation at Sleeps Hill, but a small platform wasbuilt at the siding. This platform was for a

short period of time the end of the suburbanline (Figure 4.4). The signal cabin north of theSleeps Hill platform operated from 1914 until1926, controlling access to the quarries (Callen2002). The two original tunnels at Sleeps Hillwere superseded on 16 April 1919 when a two-track wider tunnel was built a little to the east(Railway Heritage of South Australia). At thistime a double track replaced the single trackfrom Sleeps Hill and ran from the quarry tothe Mitcham Station (pers. com. Janet Callen).

On August 20, 1940 the South AustralianRailway Commissioner leased the areaadjacent to the old railway line and TunnelNo.1 to Sleeps Hill Quarry Ltd so that theycould quarry the quartzite bed under therailway line. The ballast and screenings fromthis quarry would then be sold to the RailwaysCommissioners. The lease of the land wasrenewed for ten years in 1950. The quarrypresumably fell into disuse after this, and in1969 the Railways Commissioner noted thatas Quarries Industries had sold off all theirSleeps Hill land he would lease the land andtunnels to the SA Mushroom Company. TheCompany were to operate the mushroom farmfor forty years. Today the tunnels are used forwine storage.

43

Figure 4.6 Concrete blocks from the crushing plant both on the hillside and quarry floor.SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

Figure 4.7 Concrete floorings from the crushing plant, Sleeps Hill. SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

ENVIRONMENT

Geology

The landscape of the Sleeps Hill QuarriesReserve is dominated by the geology that madeit suitable for quarrying. The Mount LoftyRanges were formed by a series of upliftsduring the Palaeozoic and Cainozoic Timesand rise from 300 to 400 metres above theAdelaide Plains. A series of westerly trendingfaults were formed, and the Clarendon-OchreCove fault passes through the western sectionof the Sleeps Hill Quarries (South AustralianPrimary Industries and Resources 2000). Thequarries cut into the Belair subgroup which isover 750 million years old. The quarries cutinto two beds of quartzite with a siltstonesequence, with the quartzite overlaying theslate in Quarries C and L2, and lying betweenthe slates in Quarry A.

Flora

The flora of Sleeps Hill is a continuationof the Sclerophyll forest found on the infertilequartzites of the easterly side of the BelairRecreation Park. This is composed of openforest with a dense undergrowth of hard,often prickly, leafed bushes and shrubs(Specht 1964:34). Trees and shrubs found inthe area include the Grey box (Eucalyptusmicrocarpa), Golden wattles (Acaciapycnantha), boneseed, kangaroo thorn (Acaciaparadoxa), Olive trees, Kangaroo grass(Themeda trianda), native mistletoe (Amyemamiquelii), sheoaks (Allocasurina verticillata),

and native cherry (Exocarpos cupressiformis).An area has been cleared of olive trees andboneseed to allow the regeneration of thenative plants which include wattles, nativegrasses, bushpeas, small lilies and sundews inthe Reserve (South Australian PrimaryIndustries and Resources 2000).

HERITAGE SURVEY

Archival research was greatly assisted byaccess to the Sleeps Hill Quarry records in the

Boral Archives. Quarry Industries, a formerowner of the quarry, was purchased byBoral Resources Ltd during the 1980s andall historical company records were retainedand form part of the Boral Archives. Theserecords have since been deposited with theState Library of South Australia. Researchinto Sleeps Hill was supplemented by anundergraduate essay, Department ofArchaeology, Flinders University and anHonours thesis submitted to the Departmentof Archaeology, Flinders University (Bender2004; Jenkins 2002).

The quarry was identified by MaggyRagless, Mitcham Local History Officer,as a priority area for a heritage survey andthe archives at the Mitcham Heritage ResearchCentre were also consulted as was Greg Drew,Office of Primary Resources and Energy.

Field survey

The Sleeps Hill quarries were surveyed byvolunteers from Flinders University workingwith archaeologists, on August 10, 2003.The group walked cross-country transectswhere possible, with individuals spacedseveral feet apart. The survey began at theHigh Street entrance and initially followedthe Sleeps Hill interpretative trail, as markedon Figure 4.1. The first 20 metres of the trackwere surveyed then a lower track was followeduntil the railway line was reached. The areawhere a crossing was previously located wassurveyed, along with an area around thetunnel. The walking group then headed



Figure 4.8 Abandoned equipment – skip. SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

Figure 4.9 Rail skip. SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

in an easterly direction to survey whatwas accessible of the steep areas andthe lower areas where extensive quarryinghad occurred between tunnels no. 1and no. 2.

Visibility: Good

Terrain: Flat and steep

Weather Conditions: Clear then rain

A second survey of the quarry was madeby Neil Stallard, Richard Irving and PamSmith in October 2004.

HERITAGE SURVEY RESULTS

All sites identified by this survey wereentered into the Hills Face Zone CulturalHeritage GIS database and shownin Figure 4.5.

Quarry crushing plant

Today the only material evidence of thecrushing plant are concrete structuresboth on the flat area of the quarry floor andon the adjoining hillside (Figures 4.6 and 4.7).There is some evidence of metal from theplant, but these represent little evidence ofthe extent of the crushing plant infrastructureat the time of its operation. It is likely thatthere were originally houses or sheds madeof metal or galvanised iron and/or wood toprotect the machinery.

Today all that remains are the concreteblocks that provided a secure foundation forthe crushers or other plant, indicated by themetal fittings still protruding from the blocksthemselves. The other fittings may have had an

economic value and were possibly reused.The quarried stone was stored above

the crushing plant but there is no evidenceof these bins today. The stone appearsto have been gravity-fed into the crusher,hence the first part of the crusher is locatedon the steep side of the hill. The crushingplant is located near to the railway siding,which would have facilitated thetransportation of crushed metal or sandto the storage bins at the railway siding.

The station yard at Sleeps Hill can be seenin Figures 4.3 and 4.4.

Incline track andabandoned equipment

A number of metal pieces connectedto the carriages used to convey the quarriedmaterial were found near to the crusherremains and quarries A and C; these includerailway skips as seen in Figure 4.8 and 4.9.The skip in Figure 4.9 may be one of the sidetipping trucks used to tip the stone into thestorage bins. Some 2 metres and 1200mmin width, these railway skips transported thequarried stone down an incline track from theupper quarries to the crushing plant and thenfrom the crusher to the railway siding. Thetracks had replaced the previous methodof transporting the stone, and can be seenin Figure 4.3.

In Figure 4.10 it is possible to see one ofthe few remaining parts of the incline trackused to transport the quarried stone to therailway siding (refer to Figure 4.5). This waslocated south of the crushing plant and is over2500mm in length.

Fence lines

A number of fence posts were locatedon that part of the track leading west fromquarry J down to the crushing plant area.As demonstrated by the melt ring andplate bolted to the post in Figure 4.11, somefence posts were used to support heavyweights. It is possible that this fence post orbeam was involved in some way with thequarrying process.

45

Figure 4.12 Plan from the Memo of Agreement between SA Railways Commissioner andSleeps Hill Quarries Limited, 20 August 1940. SOURCE ??

Figure 4.11 Post with fixing.SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

House site

This site is an open area today with novisible remains of the building indicatedon the plan, the original agreement betweenthe Railways Commission and Sleeps HillQuarries. (Figure 4.12). The site is marked bythree pencil pines, illustrated in Figure 4.13. Noevidence remains of the blacksmith shops andsheds referred to in the Memorandum ofAgreement, 1940.

Walls andkerbing

Around the Sleeps Hill quarries the surveyteam located the remains of drystone wallingwhich was over 3 metres long and a metre high(Figure 4.14), concrete curbing and concretepaths. These reflect the different decadesduring which the area was in use.

Road bridge

Scant evidence of the main access road andbridge into the Sleeps Hill Quarries over theRailway line at the corner of Hearth Roadremains. This bridge is visible in The HillsRailway, Figure 1.4, this volume. The concreteslab visible at the base of the embankment andthe gate post on top of the easternembankment remain in situ and mark thelocation of the bridge. This is located slightlynorth of where pencils pines identify thelocation of the former house site, refer also toFigure 4.5 and Plate 1.

Storage bins andthe railway siding

One of the most dramatic comparisonsbetween images of the past and the presentis the comparison between the Sleeps Hillstorage bins shown in Figure 4.2 and in Figure4.15. Of the vast superstructure shown inFigure 4.3 all that remains are the concretearches supporting the bins shown in Figure4.15. This is on the eastern side of the presentrailway line and is shown on Figure 4.5.

Signal box

Signals operated at Sleeps Hill between 1914and 1926. A concrete footing on the westernside of the present line is all that remainsof the signal box, its location is shown onFigure 4.5.

CONCLUSIONS

Sleeps Hill Quarries and the historic evidencefor early twentieth century quarryingtechnologies represent a significant culturallandscape. The present interpretation of thearea brings to life an industry that was vital to



Figure 4.14 Drystone walling, Sleeps Hill. SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

Figure 4.15 The Sleeps Hill Siding and the storage bins (2005) showing the cementfoundations of the storage bins.

SOURCE HFZCHP 2005

Figure 4.13 Pencil pines and house site at the Sleeps Hills Quarry. SOURCE HFZCHP 2004

Figure 4.10 Incline track. SOURCE HFZCHP 2003

South Australia’s economic prosperity. Todaythe quarries are readily accessible to thegeneral public and this increases theirimportance; yet only the quarries haveinterpretive signage. While quarries mightnot appear to have the same appeal as cottagesor other similar places to the general public,this does not mean we should not promote the quarry in a similar way. Sleeps Hill is oneof very few places where it is relatively easy toaccess a quarry face, and proper interpretationand management of the site is essential inallowing people to understand the realitiesof quarrying. Economic history and socialhistory can be combined in the interpretationof such sites. An opportunity also exists tolink the Sleeps Hill quarries and tunnelsto the larger history of the Adelaide toNairne railway.

475 Magpie Creek Ruin, Sturt Gorge

Recreation ParkRobert Stone

S PART OF THE Hills Face Zone survey ofA the Sturt Gorge Recreation Park, the ruinof a small domestic cottage was located nearMagpie Creek. The ruin is a single story stonebuilding of at least two rooms and threechimneys, an unusual design for a colonialcottage. The origin of the cottage remains anenigma and little is known about the builderof the cottage, despite extensive research.

Located in Section 19, Hundred ofAdelaide, Bellevue Heights in the City ofMitcham at the juncture of two smalltributaries to the Sturt River, the largest beingMagpie Creek (see Plate 3). Access to the siteis via Shepherds Hill Road then onto Ashmoreand Montgomery Roads. The first section ofthe park is Montgomery Reserve, owned bythe City of Mitcham. This leads into the SturtGorge Recreation Park which is crown landmanaged by the South Australian Departmentfor Environment and Planning. There isno indication of a boundary between thetwo parks.

The ruins are approximately 1-1.5 km fromthe end of Montgomery Road, a walk of sometwenty minutes. There is a clearly delineatedpath that crosses at least two small tributariesof the Sturt River (Plate 1).

The site is moderately wooded with treesindigenous to the area but there are alsoa large number of exotic species encroachingon the area, in particular, olive, broombush, African Daisy, English Ash, cape tulipand sparaxis.


A Reconnaissance Survey Map of the areaprepared by W.H. Edmunds in 1926 (Figure5.1) indicates that there was a small dwellingowned by the Mansons in the area whichappears to be located in, or adjacent to, theSturt Gorge Recreation Park. Section mapsobtained from the Land Titles Office were usedin an endeavour to place Edmunds’ Mansonhouse in Section 19 where it is considered thatthe Magpie Creek ruin is located. Edmundsindicated that there was a access road leadingfrom Shepherds Hill Road to the Mansonhouse and there is evidence of a macadamroadway two hundred metres from theentrance to Montgomery Reserve.

Land title records show that Section 19was transferred from the Crown to William

Waters in 1849 via a Memorandum of Title.This was subsequently sold to Charles Trott in1857 who owned the land until his death in1880. There was a succession of owners untilJane Manson purchased Section 19 on 24August 1920. Jane Manson died in 1930 andF.G. Manson administered the land until 1941when the title was transferred to him. It wasthen transferred to F.G. Mason, M.A. Mansonand L.F.K. Manson in 1949.

P.G. and L.K.K. Manson, who aredescribed as dairymen, acquired some 265acres of land in Sections 17,18,19,30 and 31 inSeptember 1965 (see Plate 3). Seventy-nineacres were in Section 19.

The area was acquired by the Governmentin 1965 when the area was subdivided and,following complaints about the noise anddestruction of the area by trail bike riders,the then minister responsible for parks andgardens, Mr Broomhill, declared the SturtGorge a Recreation Park on Thursday4 October 1973.

HERITAGE SURVEYS

Title search

With the aid of the current road map of thearea (1996 UBD Map 154, E10), and section

maps obtained from the land titles office plusobservations of the actual location of thedwelling, Section 19 in the Hundred ofAdelaide was identified as the grid location ofthe ruin.

Endeavouring to identify the ownership ofsections 19, 20, 30 and 31 by searching theoriginal Memorial of Titles for of the firstallocations in 1849 and working to the presentday proved unsuccessful. A second, and moreprofitable approach was to search the recordsat the Land Titles Offices and superimposeboth the more recent property transfers andthe boundaries of the Sturt Gorge recreationPark onto the Edmunds’ 1926 map (Figure 5.1)where the possible location of the ruin hasbeen identified by taking compass directionsfrom Mountbatten Road and observation ofthe location of the tributaries. Using thismethod Section 19 was then identified as thatcontaining the ruin. The Certificates of Titleissued in 18841 were then studied to trace theownership from that date to the time that itwas acquired by the government.

Section 19 was owned by Charles Trott

Figure 5.1 Edited section showing Sturt Gorge, from W.H. Edmunds’ Topographic Map,Glenelg to Clarendon. 1940. Magpie Creek is marked as Blackwood Gully.

SOURCE State Library of South Australia

1 Real Properties Act passed into law in 1861.Transfer of title was not automatic; application hadto be made to bring property under the Act.


Figure 5.2 Floor plan of the Magpie Creek ruin. SOURCE R.M. Stone 2002

Figure 5.3 Eastern wall and one chimney of main room. SOURCE R.M. Stone 2002

from 1857 until his death in 1880. He alsoowned land in Sections 1050, part Section1049 (Plate 3). Section 19 and Part Section1042, comprising some 155 acres, weretransferred for auction in 1881. It wouldappear from his will that his house was in oneof these two sections as the proceeds were tobe divided among his children. This is the onlyreference to Section 19 and a house.

CT 446/75, under the Real Property Act of1861, comprising some 80 acres was issued in1884 to Messrs Miller, Buik and Holmen, whowere described as Gentlemen of Adelaide.After a succession of owners the property wastransferred to Jane Manson on 24 August1920. On her death in 1930, the property wasadministered by P.G. Manson, a dairyman,until it was transferred to him in 1941 under anew CT 1782/162. Later the title wastransferred to P.G.M., M.A., and L.F.K.Manson in 1949.

CT 1782/162 was amalgamated withproperty in Section 17,19,30 and 31 and newtitles CT 3366/136 and CT 3355/44 wereissued.

In 1965, the area covered by CT 446/75,later 1782/162, was transferred to the City ofMitcham. 3366/136 and CT 3355/44, wereissued. CT 3366/136 was sold to landdevelopers, C.A. and F.J. Sergeant and wassubdivided under new titles CT 3402/39-48.The transfer of land to the council for openspace would have been a requirement forsubdivision.

Archaeological status

As the history of ownership of the building is

important for its historical status, so too is thedesign and construction technique. Just as asearch of the land title was important, so is aclear understanding of the original design ofthe building and its comparison withcontemporary structures.

The outer walls of the ruin are such that areasonably accurate floor plan was able to bedrawn (Figure 5.2).

The height of the standing walls ranges upto approximately 1.2 metres (Figure 5.3). Thereare two distinct rooms, the larger having twochimneys with possibly two external doors.There is no evidence that there was a dividingwall in the larger room between the two

chimneys to make two rooms. It is not possibleto determine how many windows there were ortheir positions2 (Figure 5.3).

The second smaller room also has achimney (Figure 5.4) and one external door, theapproximate position of which is shown on thefloor plan (Figure 5.2). There is no connectingdoor between the two rooms.

There is evidence that the building waserected in two stages. The first was the largeroom with the two chimneys and with a lowwall, possibly a retaining wall, protrudingfrom the northern wall (Figure 5.2). Theevidence for this is threefold. Firstly, the lowersection of the wall is tied into the main sectionof the building and is built of what appears tobe sandstone. This has now weathered.Secondly, the upper section of the wall is builtout of a quartzite and there is a clear divisionbetween the two sections (Figure 5.5). This isthe only example of a straight mortar line asthe building is of random rubble construction.Thirdly, there is no adjoining door betweenthe two rooms.

Examples of early two-roomed cottages allhave an adjoining door and, while this mayhave been a feature peculiar to the use of thisbuilding, construction, stone type wouldsuggest a second construction phase.

The walls of the structure are of a regularthickness with evidence of painted plaster onthe interior walls. The interiors of thechimneys are also plastered but there is noevidence of charcoal on the surfaces. There isevidence that interior plastered walls werepainted a red/brown colour.

49

Figure 5.4 Eastern wall and chimney of small room. SOURCE R.M. Stone 2002

2 The house (Bourke and Smith, 2004:72) on the peafarm and factory on Main South Road, O’HalloranHill is a typical primitive design as described byBoyd (1961:8) and the extensions also follow exactlyhis definition.

There is a further stone structure sometwelve metres from the main building. Thiscould possibly be an outside toilet, but giventhe proximity to the intersection of two creeks,it is more likely to be a hand pump to supplyregular water for the house.

In an endeavour to establish anapproximate date for the building, comparisonwas made of the architectural design andconstruction techniques of other early SouthAustralian buildings, especially the chimneys.Note was also made of ruins in other regionsvisited as part of the Hills Face Zone Project.

HERITAGE STATUS

The problem with establishing heritage statusis to determine the significance of a place andfrom there to formulate a management plan.The value of a cultural or historical place canbe initially defined as the capacity or potentialof the place to demonstrate or symbolise, orcontribute to the understanding of, orappreciation of, the human story (Pearson andSullivan, 1998:7). In part, Article 1.2 of theBurra Charter states that cultural significancemeans:

… historic… social value for past, present and futuregenerations and that it is embodied in the placeitself-which includes its fabric, setting, use,associations, related places and related objects.

The building is located in an area that wasimportant for the livelihood of early Adelaide.The Sturt River precinct was important forearly herding, market gardens and vineyards(Dolling, 1981:45). The purpose and design ofthe cottage in Sturt Gorge Recreation Park has

interest because of its insight into activity inthe valley.

The building itself has heritage statusbecause of its unique design; it does not followthe usual design for a shepherd or labourershut despite its primitive design (Connah,1993:74)2 and random rubble construction.Although the building does not appear to havebrick or shaped stone quoins, nevertheless thedesign would suggest that it was purpose builtfor a particular person or function. It is anexample of another early cottage design andtherefore has important status.

Literature search

The majority of the literature on early colonialbuilding design and construction tends toconcentrate of the two ends of the spectrum.The hardships of the early settlers in barkcottages at one end (Stone and Gardenl985:17, 21, 33, 38, 49) and the statelymansions at the other. Also, the discussion onthe topic is skewed toward buildings in NewSouth Wales and, to a lesser extent, Tasmania.

Boyd (1961:8) describes a primitivecottage as one consisting of two rooms, oneslightly longer than the other with a singlechimney at one end. (Figure 5.6). He goes on tosay that in South Australia the cottage wouldbe provided with a verandah. There was noevidence of a verandah on the Magpie Creek

ruin but as they were usually of timberconstruction it can be assumed that one couldhave been there . Boyd (1961:8) also says thatthe two-room dwelling was frequentlyextended by adding two rooms out the backmatching the front verandah profile. One ofthe two rooms usually formed the kitchen, theother the children’s bedroom.

Stone and Garden (1982:22) point to thefeatures of early miners’ cottages in WesternAustralia which show construction of randomrubble, wooden verandah in the front of thehouse, and chimneys at the end, the hip, andone on the side of the house.

The Magpie Creek cottage does not followthe extension format described by Boyd, butthis could be due to the terrain where the hillrises from the back of the house, hence thespeculation that there was retaining wall onthe north side of the house which was later usefor the northern extension.

Berry and Gilbert (1981:6), in describingearly stone cottages, state that many had tworooms with only one external door and achimney at the end of the building. Anotherfeature of buildings in the mid-nineteenthcentury was that the walls were bedding withpug clay and covered with lime wash. Theyalso say that the floor of the main rooms wasoften unsquared stone but other floors were oframmed earth.

The Magpie Creek ruin does not fit thestandard design characteristics of a nineteenthcentury two-room cottage. Indications are thatit was only one room but with two chimneys inthe eastern wall. The stones are bedded withlime mortar while the walls were plastered andpainted and not covered in limewash. It is notpossible to conclusively determine the surfaceof the floors of cottage but inside the southerndoor way was evidence of a stone floor.

The history of early population of SouthAustralia meant that the design of earlycottages was not as rigid as suggested by Boyd(1961:8) and Connah (1993:73). Immigrantsto South Australia brought their culture withthem, including their building design andconstruction techniques. Berry and Gilbert(1981:6) suggest that the design of some earlycottages were influenced by the Scottishcrofter’s cottage, so an examination of otherstyles and influences may give a clue to thedate and origins of Magpie Creek cottage.

Polish immigrants influenced houses inthe 1860s and 1870s in Polish Hill River. Theearly cottages were constructed of rubble withmud mortar, with stone corner stones orquoins and were divided into two rooms with

Magpie Creek Ruin, Sturt Gorge Recreation Park


Figure 5.5 Eastern wall of the two rooms showing the later additions to the northernretaining wall. Dividing wall between the two rooms at rights angles to theeastern wall.

SOURCE R.M. Stone 2002

3 Manson’s house has been identified adjacent toUniversity Way since this paper was written.

one external door. A common feature was amassive corner chimney that was used forcooking, baking and heating (Watson-Sharp,1983:140). An example of this was seen inWoolshed Gully of Waterfall Gully.

In 1848 the first miners’ cottages werebuilt in Kadina using Cornish labour, whichwere also constructed of random rubble withsquared quoin stones. Again pug mortar wasused and the inside was rendered with limemortar. The early floors were again ash andclay mixture (Watson-Sharp, 1983:134).However, the chimney was built on thesidewall and protruded into the house. Thisfeature was seen in the ruins of a house inGandy’s Gully (this is on land currently ownedby Boral Resources Ltd. (See Volume 4, thisseries).

Another example of early small cottageshad the chimney in the centre of an end wall orwhere there were there fireplaces in the tworooms, it was usually for the chimney(s) to exitfrom the hip of the roof.

The Magpie Creek cottage does not followany of the standard mid-nineteenth centurycottage designs. The construction is of randomrubble, lime mortar and painted plaster andwhile there is possible evidence of brick quoinsin the front, the internal corners could not beclassified as squared.


The area which is now the Sturt GorgeRecreation Park has an important part in the

early history of the development of SouthAustralia. From 1849 the land was owned byfarmers and, for short periods, gentlemen andagents. The land has been used predominantlyfor grazing and there is no evidence ofcropping or horticulture in the region.Horticulture was the predominant activity onproperties slightly further down the gully(Dolling, 1981:140).

The longest periods of ownership were byCharles Trott, 1859-1880, and the Mansonfamily, 1920-1965, when Section 19 wastransferred to the government as ‘open space’,which was a requirement for subdivisions.

After studying the various documents inthe Land Titles Office and other evidence, it isconcluded that the Magpie Creek ruin was notthe Manson house shown in Edmunds’ 1926map (Figure 5.1). If the map is accurate, thenthe ruin is south of the railway bridge onShepherds Hill Road, while the Manson houseis in a more westerly direction and would placeit nearer University Way3.

The position of the access track is alsointeresting. The location of the macadam trackis approximately where the boundary of theMountbatten Reserve and Sturt GorgeRecreation park would be. The pathway to theManson house off Shepherds Hill Road exitsfurther west of the path to the ruin andapproximates the current road.

Edmunds’ 1926 map (Figure 5.1) does notshow the Magpie Creek ruins, which couldindicate that the ruin was just that at that timeand hence was not occupied by Jane Manson,and therefore was probably abandoned priorto her acquisition. According to Charles Trott’swill, he had a reasonably large family. Hementions bequests to three of his childrenwith the remainder of the estate, whichincluded Section 19, to be sold and dividedamongst his sons and daughters. It can beassumed that at the time of his death, the ruinwas no longer the family home. Given thenumber of offspring, the reason for thebuilding extension and its abandonment isunderstandable.

Turning to the design of the house, it is notthe bark house of a peasant, nor is it a hastilybuilt structure, and the use of random stoneconstruction should not be consideredsubstandard. It was well-constructed, witha constant thickness of the walls and chimneysof almost identical dimensions. The housealmost certainly had a timber verandah acrossthe front; however, the need for two doors andtwo chimneys in the main room is one of themany questions associated with the designof the ruin (Figure 5.2). Did this mean thatthere was a timber partition between the two,which in itself would have been an uncommonfeature in a stone structure? In the main room,was one chimney used for cooking and theother general heating? What in fact were thespatial dynamics of this unusually-designedhouse? If the southern door does not in factturn out to be a door, this adds to thecomplexity of the spatial dynamics – forexample, why wasn’t the door in the centre?What was the configuration of the windows?

The extension to the house was obviouslyconstructed to accommodate the extendingfamily, but what was its use? Boyd (1961:8)suggested that the first extension of primitivecottages was for a kitchen and children’sbedroom. This could have been either. Thechimney in the extension has similardimensions to the other two and thereforecould have been the new kitchen, with theother room purely as living space. Giventhat it had private exterior access and wasplastered and painted, it could have been theparents’ bedroom, with the main room forcooking, general living space and children’sbedroom. However, no matter the amountof speculation, currently there is no evidenceto identify its actual use. This is not helpedby the absence of any outbuildings. Given thatit was a reasonably large family, there must

51

Figure 5.6 Floor plan of ‘primitive cottage’. SOURCE Boyd 1961:8

4 Already trees are damaging the remaining walls,especially the southern wall. An attempt has beenmade to stabilise the walls by mortaring the tops,but this needs to be done professionally. Distinctmortar type and colour should be used todistinguish it from the original mortar.

5 As noted above, the area was proclaimed arecreation park after residents complained aboutthe activities of trail bikes. Today the problem ismountain bikes. While surveying the ruins inRandall Park, which was part of the HFZ project, itwas observed that mountain bike riders were usingone of the remaining outbuilding walls as a jumpingplatform. During the survey of the Sturt GorgeRecreation Park, it was noted that mountain bikeriders used a path adjacent to the ruin. Once thetrees surrounding the ruins are removed, the eastwall would also become a jumping platform, hencethe need for the wooden barricade.

Magpie Creek Ruin, Sturt Gorge Recreation Park

have been adjacent laundry, bathroom andtoilet facilities.

Would further investigation help inunderstanding the use of the building?A number of exploratory excavation trenchesmay provide answers, and with minimalimpact on the structure, may help locatecertain features – for example the positionof the doorway in small room, whether therewas a second door in the large room andwhether there was a partition dividing thelarge room. Excavations may also help toestablish the floor surface.

Further inspection of the front of thebuilding may answer the question whetherthere was a verandah and closer inspection ofthe environs may identify the presence of anyoutbuildings.

CONCLUSIONS ANDRECOMMENDATIONS

The ruin is associated with the early ruraldevelopment of the Sturt River Gorge and withprominent people of the region. Even afterSection 19 was transferred to the government,both the Manson and Trott families continuedto be associated with the region. The ruin wasalmost certainly the first home of Charles Trottafter he purchased Section 19. It was well-constructed and was of unique design. Uniquedesign was not the sole province of statelyhomes; it could also be embodied in moremodest dwellings.

The unique design, while not providingtoo many answers at this stage, does raisequestions about domestic arrangements andthe use of space. The design does not appear tofit the common layout, especially the position

of the two chimneys in the large room. Eventhe extension does not conform to the designof the day. It could be expected that a chimneyin the third room would have been placed inthe end wall. Was it aesthetics, the need forconsistency, or was it that they wereaccustomed to that position and did not wantto change?

The primitive bark houses of the earlycolonialists as depicted by Stone and Garden(1982.20) were small with a single central doorand one room. Living conditions were harshand very simple. The floor plan of Boyd’sprimitive cottage (Figure 5.6) also had a singledoor, one chimney and, in the first phase ofconstruction, had two rooms. The acceptedpattern of extension also differed to Boyd’sthesis (1961:8, also Connah, 1993:73). Theargument for the standard initial design andextensions was based on family structure anduse of domestic space. This standard pattern ofbehaviour does not appear to fit the case of theMagpie Creek ruin.

Despite the fact that there are unansweredquestions concerning the design and use ofthe house, the ruins warrant preservation onthese grounds:• an association with early rural development

within the Sturt Gorge;

• an association with early prominent familiesin the region (Dolling, 1981); and

• a unique architectural design and its impacton spatial use and family dynamics.

The conservation and management of aruin that is isolated and which may notengender a deal of public enthusiasm is achallenge. There must be a commitment to theneed for conservation of the ruin and this will

only come from knowledge of its historicsignificance. A minimal plan for theconservation and management of the ruinwould include:• placing the ruin on the City of Mitcham

Local Heritage Register;• clearing the immediate site of all

vegetation4;• the area surrounding the ruin being cleared

of all exotic plants and the grass regularlycut to give the impression that ‘someonecares’. The building could be put under thecare of the Friends of the Sturt Gorge, or aBush Action Team that is sponsored byTrees for Life;

• placing a timber enclosure around the wellto protect both it and the public;

• placing a timber barrier at least three metresaway from the entire length of the east wall5;and

• placing a single interpretive sign near theruin detailing its history.

If an excavation did take place and a stonefloor was discovered, a section of this could beleft exposed. However, unless the excavationsrevealed anything of structural or historicalimportance, the trenches should be backfilledso that they are unobtrusive.

It could be suggested that some effort bemade to restore the building by rebuilding thewalls with the stones that are in closeproximity to their probable original position.This approach is not recommended as it wouldnot add to the structure and without theoriginal plans there is no certainty that theywould be an accurate reconstruction. Havingsaid that, excavation (especially of the areaswhere the outline of the original walls is notclearly designed) may result in a revision of theproposed minimal management andconservation plan.


6 Magpie Creek CatchmentVirginia Manson

MAGINE A TIME when the people living inI Blackwood did not go shopping until thestock had been driven from the Blackwoodrailway station to the slaughter yards. In thenineteenth and early twentieth centuriesBlackwood was considered to be a rural area,and the Blackwood Station was a rural stationwith stock yards close to the present recyclingdepot. Stock were regularly unloaded into theyards, then herded through the country townto one of the two small slaughter yards or tothe farms of their new owners. The Jonesslaughter yard and many of these farms werein the Magpie Creek catchment.

The Magpie Creek rises in Blackwood, nowa suburb of Adelaide, and is a tributary ofSturt River. The sections containing the creekcatchment that pass through the Hills FaceZone (sections 19, 1041, 1047 and 1048,Hundred of Adelaide) are now known as theBlackwood Hill Reserve and the ReconciliationPark, two areas of open space that arecontinuous with the Sturt Gorge RecreationPark (Plates 1, 2, and 3).

Most of this catchment area was clearedof vegetation during the nineteenth centuryand used to graze stock. Today the BlackwoodHill Reserve is being re-vegetated and provideslocal recreation facilities. The Tom RobertsHorse Trail is a popular riding trail and thereare well signposted walking trails through thepark that can be followed into the Sturt GorgeRecreation Park. The suburbs borderingMagpie Creek today are Blackwood, BellevueHeights and Craigburn.

This paper recounts the settlementhistory of these sections and identifies theways in which the present cultural landscapehas been shaped by changing uses of the landduring the nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies. Blackwood Hill Reserve is nowincluded in the National Estate Register and isrecognised as an area of natural heritagesignificance (refer to the Blackwood HillReserve Blackwood brochure prepared byMitcham Local History Service).

ENVIRONMENT

The Magpie Creek catchment varies fromundulating to very steep, with evidence ofSturt tillite outcropping along the steep sidesof the main valley. The small areas of flat landare confined to the narrow valleys and ridge

tops. Murray Jones, a former owner of Sections1047, 2204 and 1041, said that a detour alongthe top of the rocky area above the creek insection 1047 and then along a flatter ridgeprovided access to water for horse drawnvehicles.

The vegetation in the catchment isdescribed in the Sturt Gorge Report, thisvolume. Although isolated areas of nativeunderstorey remain in association withEucalyptus microcarpa, most of the area hasbeen cleared. The Magpie Creek catchmentwas a source of wattle bark used for tanninghides and the area was cleared for grazingsheep and cattle. Most of the catchment is nowinvaded by feral plant species.

Re-vegetation with native grasses andwattles is taking place along the Magpie creektrail in sections 1048 and 1047, and thefollowing detailed sign recorded by MaggyRagless and Virginia Manson in January 2004provides information about a recent re-vegetation program and past erosion of thearea, partly resulting from the subdivision ofland around Clematis Drive and TrevorTerrace.

Before 18 June 2001: Overland flow fromupper section of Blackwood Hill reserve wascollected behind houses on Clematis Drive anddirected down the Magpie Gully Creek. This

resulted in gully erosion on the southern slopenear the creek. This site was cleared of woodyweed i.e. Olive, Desert Ash, in 1999.

After 14 November 2001: Rehabilitationworks include extensive re-vegetation withindigenous tube stock (Grey Box, KangarooThorn and Juncus spp) to stabilise smallgullies and reduce overland flow by increasinginfiltration into the soil. Sediment traps havebeen installed using straw bales to infill smallgullies and reduce the amount of sedimententering the creek. Kangaroo grass is beingpromoted to stabilise the soil and reducefurther weed invasion.

Before 18 June 2001: Gully forming nearthe creek, a concentration of overland flowinto one area combined with a lack ofvegetation contributed to gully erosion.

After 14 November 2001: Sediment trap –a straw bale sediment trap in the samelocation (as above) has already collected 150-200 mm of silt, which will assist to infill smallgullies. Areas built up with sediment can thenbe stabilised with native plants. (Funding fromNatural Heritage Trust, SA Urban ForestBiodiversity program, PatawalongaCatchment Water Management Board, Cityof Mitcham, Blackwood Primary School).

There are some small waterholes in theupper Magpie creek area indicative of small

Figure 6.1 The cottage on Section 1047. SOURCE Murray Jones

53

Figure 6.2 The Jones’ slaughterhouse. SOURCE Murray Jones

1 Detailed land tenure information is available fromthe author.

2 Land tenure information held by the MitchamHeritage Research Centre.

spring activity. The vegetation along the ridgeis sparse with Eucalyptus microcarpa anddenser understorey plants found along theriparian zone. Evidence of settlement isprovided by the profusion of white liliesscattered along the creek.


The first grants of Country Sections inthis area were during the 1850s. From thattime until the last two-three decades mostof the land in the Magpie Creek catchmentwas continuously used for grazing cattleand sheep1.

Section 19

The following is a brief summary of early landtenure for this section:

1849 October 1 – Land Grant Section 19 for £80 toWilliam Waters farmer of Sturt of 80 acres.

1856 October 13 – Indenture between WilliamWaters farmer of Sturt and J.A. Morris bootmakerof Adelaide and G. Rankine for £380… To hold thesaid Section of Land hereditaments and premiseswith the appurtenances unto the said J.A. Morris &G.H. Rankine.

1856 October 14 – Mortgaged for £380 & interestfrom W. Waters to Joseph Abraham Morrisbootmaker of Adelaide and George RankineLicensed Victualler of Hilton.

1857 October 14 – from Joseph A Morris & Geo.Rankine to Charles Trott of £20 for £380 & interest.

Application 19492, later LTO 412/29

Charles Trott was granted this Section in1857 and is thought to have built a smallhouse, now known as the Magpie Creek ruin(pers. com. Milton Trott). This house wasflooded soon after it was built and CharlesTrott moved to a new house in Wade Street,Eden Hills. See the report The Magpie CreekRuin, this volume.

The land tenure history of this section isremarkable for the number of land transfersand the speculators who invested in it.2

Charles Trott died on 6 August 1880, aged65 years. He was predeceased by his wifeHannah who had died on 5 January 1872 aged53 years and by his daughter who died in1872. (Detailed information about the Trottfamily is available from the Mitcham HeritageResearch Centre).

Part Section 1042

Located between the hills railway line andShepherds Hill Road, this section has a diverse

history. The Hoffman kiln, imported fromGermany to supply bricks for the tunnelsalong the new railway through the Adelaidehills, was built on this section in 1879. This isdescribed in the report The Hills Railway, thisvolume.

The Anglican church built Karyina, ahostel for sisters of the Anglican Church, onthis section adjacent to Shepherds Hill Road.This was also used as an inebriates retreat forwomen. Karyina returned to the Crown andbecame a home for Aboriginal girls in 1944.Over the next two decades approximately 350Aboriginal children were housed here. The lastremnants of the home were demolished in1977 and today the Reconciliation Park,containing sculptures by Silvio Appollo, isdedicated to the Aboriginal people whosuffered as members of the stolen generation.The first reconciliation event in Australia washeld here in 1997.

Section 1047 and section 2204

The early land tenure of section 1047 is asfollows:• 1852 – conveyance from John Crothers,

bachelor, farmer of Sturt to Philip Webberfarmer of the Upper Sturt for £60. PhilipWebber is recorded as having had a houseand 28 acres by 1853/1854. (MitchamCouncil Rate Assessments).

• 1855 – Conveyance from Philip Webberfarmer of the Upper Sturt to John Clarkfarmer of the township of Darlington for£150 – “together with all houses, outhouses,ways, paths, passages rights members andappurtenance thereunto.”

• 1856 – Conveyance from John Clark toThomas Elsegood.

In 1880 Thomas Elsegood sold this section toSydney and George Firth gentlemen ofAdelaide.The property changed hands

Magpie Creek Catchment


Figure 6.3 Picture of Wittunga.SOURCE Mitcham Heritage Research Centre, Blackwood Biography File 11 – Ashby

3 Murray Jones named this street after his eldestson, Trevor.

several times before being purchased by theJones family:

• 1923 – State Bank of SA to William ArthurConlon, returned soldier of Blackwood whotransferred it on the same day to Alison,wife of William Archibald Jones, butcher ofBlackwood.

• 1950 – Alison Jones transferred the land toher two sons, Edwin Keltie and WilliamMurray Jones both butchers of Blackwood.

Thomas andEsther Elsegood

The barque China of 658 tons, sailed fromPlymouth on 26 July, 1852 and arrived at PortAdelaide on 12 November 1852. On boardwere Thomas Elsegood aged 38 and his wifeEsther Elsegood aged 35. Their children,Robert (14), John (12), Israel (8) and Elizabeth(3) were with them. Thomas and EstherElsegood were the great-great-grandparents ofthe author.

Thomas Elsegood purchased Section 1047(36 acres) from John Clark in 1856 for £200and at that time he was described as a “farmerof Marion on Sturt”. By 1881 he owned 36acres and a five roomed house, Figure 6.1(Mitcham Council Assessment Books).

The Jones family

The Jones family purchased section 1047 in1923 and the property became the centre oftheir butchering business for the next thirtyyears. Stock grazed on this section and their

adjoining section 2204 to the south west wasused as a cropping paddock.

The Jones family lived in the house in thecorner of section 1047 (built by Philip Webberand Thomas Elsegood) from 1923 to 1932. Thehouse faced down the gully to the west, withthe back facing what is now Trevor Terrace3.Murray Jones recalls that there was apomegranate tree, a plum tree and a mulberrytree in the garden and an underground tank.The house had stone walls with a back lean-tokitchen/laundry and back verandah. Thehouse was surrounded by a fence to keepAshby’s cows out of the garden. There was asmall gate which opened to a path leading tothe slaughterhouse.

The iron slaughterhouse was built in 1930on Trevor Terrace at the end of CummingStreet. This area is now the Blackwood HillReserve Football oval (Figure 6.2).

The animals were bought at Gepps CrossAbattoirs, cattle on Monday and sheep onWednesday. The cattle were delivered onTuesdays and sheep on Thursdays. The localpeople did not go shopping until the stock hadbeen driven from the Blackwood railwaystation to the slaughter yards as it wasconsidered too dangerous to go on the roads.There are stories of fences being knockeddown and cattle having to be shot in people’syards when they became uncontrollable.Murray Jones also recalled the story of a ladywho was so shocked at seeing cattle on theroad that she ran away, leaving the baby in thepram, and Murray had to dismount from hishorse to return the pram and baby to her.

There was also a small cottage on theadjacent section 2204 and a relative of MurrayJones, Virginia (Daisy) Winn, who owned abutcher shop in Coromandel Valley, used todeliver meat to this house – carried in a pack-saddle on her horse (pers. com. Murray Jones).

Alison Jones divested her interest in theproperty in 1950 to her sons and it wasacquired by the City of Mitcham for openspace in 1965.

Section 1048

A Country Section of 74 acres was granted toGeorge Deane Sismey of Adelaide onDecember 9, 1850. Sismey soon sold his landto Daniel Whitehorn, farmer of Upper Sturt,for £100 on October 11 1851:

… together with all timber and minerals thereonand thereunder and all ways paths, passages, rightsprivileges and appurtenances to the said sectionof land and premises herein before expressedand intended to be hereby released belongingor in anywise…

Section 1048 ran from the top of the ridge,now Shepherds Hill Road, south in line withNorthcote Road to the Magpie Creek and eastto what is now Trevor Terrace. The sectionchanged owners a number of times during thenineteenth and early twentieth century andincluded Charles Trott and Edwin Ashby. Trottis first referred to as having the use of the landin an Indenture dated July 9, 1869.

Edwin Ashby purchased Section 1048 in1902. He migrated to Australia from Surrey,England, in 1888 and was a land and estateagent, well-known naturalist, peace-workerand Quaker. One of his daughters, Alison, wasa noted botanical artist. Mr Ashby named hisproperty Wittunga and cultivated an extensivecollection of South African plants on the ridgeadjacent to the Shepherds Hill Road. TheWittunga garden was donated by his son KeithAshby and family to the Adelaide BotanicGardens in 1965 and was officially opened tothe public in September 1975.

Mr Ashby grazed cattle on most of thesection and had a small dam, now a dip inTrevor Terrace. Murray Jones recalled thatwhen Mr Ashby wanted to shift his cattle fromhis Brighton Parade property (section 2201) tohis Trevor Terrace property, he would have tocheck the train times with the railways toensure that they would not disrupt the trains,or be hit by a train (pers. com. Murray Jones).

A ruin was remember located near TrevorTerrace, and Virginia (Daisy) Winn, whoowned a butcher shop in Coromandel Valley,also used to deliver meat to this house (pers.com. Murray Jones). Much of Section 1048 is

55Magpie Creek Catchment

outside of the Hills Face Zone and is nowsubdivided or is part of the Wittunga Garden.Some open space remains along MagpieCreek and forms a part of the BlackwoodHill Reserve.

HERITAGE SURVEY

Research

Murray Jones, a former owner of Section 1047,and his wife Melva were contacted about thehistory of their property. They visited the siteof the former Jones family house and wereinterviewed there on 24 February, 2004. Theywere able to provide a great deal of historicalinformation about their butchering businessand the adjacent land in the Magpie Creekarea. Maggy Ragless (Mitcham CommunityHistorian) assisted with the surveys in theMagpie Creek valley and with the site surveys.Archival research was undertaken at theMitcham Heritage Research Centre and LandTitles Office.

Field surveys

Two field surveys were undertaken withMaggy Ragless and Pam Smith (Department ofArchaeology, Flinders University), to identifythe sites of the two ruins referred to above.

Cottage,Section 1047

Preliminary survey was undertaken by MaggyRagless and Virginia Manson in January 2004.Some brick paving and a cement floor werevisible. Discussions with Melva and MurrayJones on site on 24 February 2004 confirmedthat this area was a recent addition possiblybuilt by Mr S.C. Stidson. It is likely that theconcrete was a base for an additional watertank, which he would have needed after theslaughter yard closed. Murray and Melva Jonesalso confirmed that the house had been nearerto Trevor Terrace and identified a slab ofconcrete believed to have been the back doorstep. This was the only surface evidence of theformer west-facing illustrated in Figure 6.1.

Cottage,Section 2204

A small cottage is also known to have existedon Section 2204 on the northern side ofthe access road constructed for the buildingof the Sturt Gorge dam. A survey of the areawas undertaken. Two small benches in theslope of the hill were located, but there wasno material evidence that this had been ahouse site.

CONCLUSION

The Magpie Creek catchment is continuouswith the Sturt Gorge and was an importantsource of water, shelter and food for theKaurna people. Whilst researching this paperit has been interesting to note the diversity ofland owners following European settlementand to speculate about their differing visions.Many property speculators took up landgrants in this area and sold them almostimmediately. Property speculators frequentlyfeature in the land title history of mostsections.

The longer-term settlers came with avision of clearing the land, growing crops,grazing sheep and cattle and establishingorchards and gardens. Few of their cottagesremain.

The Blackwood Hill Reserve and MagpieCreek catchment is now notable for its naturalheritage values and its important role as abuffer zone between urban development andthe Sturt Gorge.

Although the evidence of the earliergrazing and butchering industries is nowslight, the cultural heritage of the area is oflocal interest. The area is another example ofhow colonial cultural landscapes in the HillsFace Zone are being re-evaluated and re-vegetated as natural landscapes.


7 The Sturt GorgePam Smith, Erinna Dennis and Gordon de Rose

RCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE of militaryA exercises, mining, a pastoral enterpriseand a squatter were among the historic sitesrecorded in the Sturt Gorge by the Hills FaceZone Cultural Heritage Project. These siteshave remained undisturbed in the gorgelargely because of the protection provided bythe Hills Face Zone legislation and by thedeclaration of the gorge as a recreation park.The interpretation of these sites through thisproject has also provided rare insights intolittle known aspects of South Australia’s socialhistory, and in particular, the visit of LordKitchener to Adelaide, the Depression, andWorld War II. This diversity of archaeologicalevidence supports the conclusion of thisreport, that the Sturt Gorge should beconsidered a significant landscape both for itsnatural and cultural heritage values.

Now, in 2005, most of the Sturt Gorge iswithin the Sturt Gorge Recreation Park1, thatis, Sections 625 and 674 in the Hundred ofAdelaide and Sections 1549, 1556 and 1561 inthe Hundred of Noarlunga (originally surveyedas Sections 28, 29, 68-71, 79 and 80 in theHundreds of Adelaide and Noarlunga). Thelocation of Sturt Gorge is shown on Plate 1. Anedited historic topographic map of theMitcham Hills, including the Sturt Gorge,prepared by W.H. Edmunds in 1926 is shownin Plate 2, and a map showing the Land Grantsin the Mitcham Council area and prepared byMaggy Ragless is shown in Plate 3.

The land north of the Sturt River is withinthe Mitcham Council area and the land southof the Sturt River is within the OnkaparingaCouncil area. A small area of the Magpie Creekcatchment was included in the field survey,which commenced at Mountbatten Avenue,Bellevue Heights. This section was in MitchamCouncil’s Blackwood Reserve (refer also to thereport Blackwood Reserve, this volume).

The Sturt Gorge is listed on the SouthAustralian Heritage Register. According to thestatement of significance it is listed for thecontribution the geological formation knownas the Sturt Tillite made to understanding thePrecambrian glacial and its contribution togeological education and research. It is also thehabitat of a rare skink (Australian HeritagePlaces Inventory).


Indigenous heritage

The Sturt Gorge is within the traditional landof the Kaurna people and the Kaurna HeritageCommittee was consulted about Indigenousheritage in the gorge. It is believed that theKaurna name for the Sturt River wasWarriparri, as Captain Barker referred to therenaming of a river called Warriparri by theAborigines as the Sturt, after Captain Sturt(Martin 1987:16).

European colonisation

The earliest documentation of Sturt Gorgefollowing European colonisation in 1836appears in the 1837 records of ColonelWilliam Light. In that year he erected a 20 footflagstaff close to the western end of the SturtGorge as a trig point for his TrigonometricalSurvey of the Adelaide Plains2. The division ofthe Adelaide Plains into Country Sections wasbased on this Trigonometrical Survey and wascompleted during 1838, at which time Lightpresented his resignation to the SouthAustralian Company amid much controversy.The first map of his survey was published byJohn Arrowsmith, London, in 1839.

Prior to the Trigonometrical Survey andthe recognition of the geographic barrier theSturt Gorge presented, a straight road runningdirectly to the south had been proposed. Thiswas corrected by a detour around the gorgealong the route of the present South Roadthrough Darlington and over Tapley’s Hill3.The Sections in this region were surveyedduring December, 1838, and the surveyors’base camp was located on the Sturt River closeto where the river leaves the gorge and entersthe plain. The location of the camp wasdescribed by the surveyor James Hawker:

In the beginning of December 1838, a largesurvey camp was formed on the opposite sideof the Sturt River, a little to the left of the presentbridge crossing the river on the South Main roadjust before reaching the foot of Tapley’s Hill.Mr J.W. McLaren was in command as seniorsurveyor.

Hawker 1899:35

Sturt Gorge was named after the explorerCaptain Charles Sturt, who was appointed theSurveyor General of South Australia in April1839. The first landowner in the gorge wasArchibald Jaffrey who purchased Sections 29,68, 69, 79 and 393 on October 29, 1849. Helater purchased a further 63 hectares (Sections70 and 71) on April 18, 1850 and 32 hectares(Section 80) on November 21, 1850 (National

1 Although not all of the gorge is within the HillsFace Zone.

2 Light’s 1837 trig point is now commemorated by amemorial 100m to the west in a reserve adjacent toFlagstaff Hill Road, Flagstaff Hill.

Figure 7.1 Lunch break during the survey of the Sturt Gorge. SOURCE HFZCHP 2002

3 The powerlines and the Section boundaries followthe original route south across the Sturt Gorge.

57

Figure 7.2 A 14 lb shell found in Sturt Gorge,believed to have been left bymilitary training activities in 1912.

SOURCE Mr Gordon de Rose

Figure 7.4 Red Cross vehicle on Shepherd’sHill Road during World War II.

SOURCE Mitcham Heritage Research Centre

Figure 7.3 An Army vehicle on Shepherd’sHill Road during World War II.

SOURCE Mitcham Heritage Research Centre

4 Black’s Road was upgraded and widened during2004 and Transport SA had planned to remove thistree, now known locally as ‘Kitchener’s Tree’.Consultations between this project, Transport SAand the Onkaparinga Council resulted in the treebeing spared and a modification was made to theroad works proposal to allow for this.

Parks and Wildlife 1985:29). From May 1851we know that Jaffrey leased the property to anumber of persons, most of whom used theland for grazing cattle and sheep and after hisdeath in 1893 his children continued to leasethe property for grazing (National Parks andWildlife 1985:29). In May 1903, two hectaresof Section 80 were sold to Henry R. Adams andthe remaining Sections were sold to CharlesJohn Downer of Blackwood in November 1919.Shortly after this transfer the Minister ofRepatriation purchased the property fromDowner for a settlement for dischargedsoldiers and Edgar de Rose, recently returnedfrom World War I, was allocated almost all ofthe land occupied by the present recreationpark. The family named the property the SturtHills and, although they concentrated mainlyon sheep farming, a fertile section at southernend of the property was leased for flax cropsduring World War II and for peas and cerealcrops in subsequent years.

The de Rose family continued the pastoraltradition and maintained a flock of up to 1200sheep until bushfires during the 1960s anddepredations by local dogs forced them to sellsome of their property to developers. Thebalance of their land, including the SturtGorge, was purchased by the South AustralianNational Parks and Wildlife Service in 1969.

A stone cottage, built for Mr Waymouth,was located on Section 71 and Edgar de Roseextended this cottage into the family homeoccupied by the de Rose family for almost fiftyyears. According to Gordon de Rose there hadalso been a second cottage on the property tothe west of this house on the ridge close toSpring Creek.

During the depression of the 1930s the deRose’s also cut timber from the eastern end ofthe property and the wood was sold tobakeries and brick makers. Wattle bark, usedfor tanning hides, is also known to have beencollected along the length of the gorge and tothe fringe of Blackwood.

Mining

Two mines operated in the gorge. One,promoted by land developers as theFlagstaff Hill Gold mine, was a silver, leadand zinc deposit south-west of the Sturt Riveron Section 27. There is no record of whooperated this mine or when, but the depositwas rediscovered in July 1961 when theEngineering and Water Supply Departmentwas conducting test drillings in preparationfor the construction of the Sturt Flood Controldam (National Parks and Wildlife 1985:30).

The origin of the second mine, the SturtGorge copper-lead mine, is also unknown.It was a long-abandoned mine when the deRoses moved to the property, although it wasreopened in 1956 and worked then for aboutsix years (Mineral Claim No. 3719). It is on asteep slope 56 metres above the river andconsisted of two adits (National Parks andWildlife 1985:30).

Lord Kitchener andthe events of 1910

It is known that Lord Kitchener was inAustralia to assess Australia’s military forcesaround 1910 (Scott 1938:236). It is believedthat he visited South Australia at this time,during which the army demonstrated itspreparedness to meet an invasion by staginga mock battle and firing its artillery, 14 lbbombs, in Sturt Gorge (pers. com. G. de Rose).

At this time Blacks Road, now a majorroad, was a dirt track that ended close to thepresent intersection with Botanic Avenue,Flagstaff Hill and the demonstration is reputedto have taken place at the end of Blacks Road.Today there is an unprepossessing SouthAustralian Blue gum (Eucalyptus leucoxylon)on the corner of Botanic Avenue and BlacksRoad, Flagstaff Hill, where Lord Kitchener isreported to have sat in the shade and watchedthis demonstration4.

The artillery fired their 14 lb shellsin the general direction of Blackwood and,

as a child, Gordon de Rose found remnantsfrom these shells scattered around the gorgeand the depressions made by the impactof the shells remain visible throughout thegorge. One of these shells is illustrated inFigure 7.2.

World War I

Research into the Army Archives at theKeswick barracks identified only one referenceto the Sturt River and that was reference wasto World War 1. It stated that the 43rdbattalion stationed at the Mitcham Armycamp in World War I used the ‘dry bed’ of theSturt River as a training area with a miniaturefiring range (Colliver and Richardson 1920).

The Depression

During the Depression of the 1930s manySouth Australians found themselves out ofwork and with no income. A few also lost theirhomes and had to live rough in tents andshelters made from scrap iron and timber. It isfortunate that Gordon de Rose was able todraw on his childhood memories to providesome information about the homeless peoplewho lived in Sturt Gorge during theDepression. He recalled that one squatters’camp along the creek in Sturt Gorge becamerelatively permanent. Elements of that shelterremain and were recorded during a site visit.

World War II

The de Rose property in Sturt Gorge wascommandeered by the Australian Armyduring World War II and was used by themilitary for training and as a defence positionagainst invasion. Military strategists at thetime reasoned that if the enemy were to invade

The Sturt Gorge


Figure 7.5 The Sturt River where it passesthrough a narrow section of theSturt Gorge.

SOURCE HFZCHP 2002

South Australia they would land along thesouth coast and travel along the South Road,the main highway linking the southern coastwith the city of Adelaide. Sturt Gorge wasselected as an appropriate point of defencebecause of its close proximity to the SouthRoad and its steep topography. Machine gunswere manned throughout the war and werepositioned so that main roads from the southand from Glenelg were covered.

Gordon de Rose identified the locationsof the wireless operators, the mess huts andofficers’ accommodation on the southernside of his family’s property. Military defenceswere located along the northern ridge of SturtGorge (now Eve Road, Bellevue Heights) andwire entanglements, a trench and machinegun emplacements can still be found belowthe ridge.

De Rose also recalled that horses fromthe Glenthorne remount depot (corner ofSouth Road and Majors Road, O’HalloranHill) were used in the gorge by the army andhe owns a piece from a quick release harnessused by the army. A military vehicle wasphotographed on Shepherd’s Hill Roadduring this time (Figure 7.3), together witha Red Cross vehicle (Figure 7.4).

Mr Bob Searles, in an interview withErinna Dennis, provided additionalinformation about the World War II sites.He identified machine gun emplacementsand trenches on the hillside below the presentFlinders University Ring Road. He alsorecalled that these machine guns were mannedby soldiers from an army camp at Eden Hillsand that the wire entanglements andadditional machine guns to the east (in thearea of our field survey) were to be used as afallback position and were not manned at alltimes (pers. com. R. Searles). These trenchesand machine gun emplacements were notincluded in the field survey described belowand were difficult to identify.

Although this project focused on thedocumentation of historic sites between1836 and 1936, the World War II historyof the gorge has been included because it mayotherwise be lost.

As mentioned above, Sturt Gorge waspurchased by the South Australian NationalParks and Wildlife Service in 1969 and is nowknown as the Sturt Gorge Recreation Park. Atthe time of writing, the open space associatedwith Craigburn Farm had been includedin the park and a draft Management Planwas open for public comment (Departmentfor Environment and Heritage 2004).

ENVIRONMENT

Flora

The Sturt River and its several tributaries areimportant components of the PatawalongaCatchment area and present managementstrategies aim to maximise biodiversityconservation outcomes (Department forEnvironment and Heritage 2004:14).

Three vegetation associations dominatethe park. They are the Grey Box (Eucalyptusmicrocarpa) open forest, Grey Box woodlandand the Grey Box/Sheoak (Allocasuarinaverticillata) low woodland. Prior tocolonisation, most of the park would havecarried typical Grey Box open woodland/openforest associations. Previously a dominantspecies, Grey Box is now found only in a selectnumber of locations. River Red Gum(Eucalyptus camaldulensis) still dominate theriparian zone, but in greatly reduced numbers.

Two hundred and seventy-one nativeplant species have been recorded withinthese vegetation associations, of which nineare considered to be of state conservationsignificance and 58 are of regional significance(Department for Environment and Heritage2004:14).

A history of logging, bark-stripping of theacacia, grazing and cropping in the gorge andsurrounding region has resulted in the

modification of virtually all pre-Europeancolonisation environments and theintroduction of a range of exotic weed species.The dominant trees and their associationscontinue to be those indigenous to the area,although they are degraded and many of theGrey Box have multiple trunks and are of auniform age. The European olives (Oleaeuropea) have invaded most of the park and aredense in the gullies and on all the steep slopesof the gorge. Other serious weed infestationsinclude desert ash (Fraxinus oxycarpa),Cottonbush (Asclepias rotundifolia) and SouthAfrican Daisy (Senecio pterophorus).

Geology and topography

The Sturt Gorge is of considerable geologicalsignificance and is the main reason for thegorge having been designated as a park in1969. Rock strata of glacial origin wereidentified in the gorge by Howchin in 1901.Dated to approximately 750 million years,the Sturt Tillite holds the distinction of beingthe first area to provide definite evidenceof glaciation at such an early stage in thegeological history of the world (Departmentfor Environment and Heritage 2004:10). TheSturt Tillite can be traced in a north-southdirection for 720 km and in an east-westdirection for over 320 km. At one time itprobably formed a continuous sheet over thisentire area.

The Sturt Gorge is in the Adelaidefoothills on the Eden Fault Block and theSturt River (Figure 7.5) has carved a deepnarrow gorge through the tillite strata. It is alsoone of the major catchment areas in the MountLofty Ranges and extends eastwardto Belair, Crafers, Heathfield and CherryGardens (Department for Environment andHeritage 2004:11).

Several tributaries of the Sturt River arealso located in the park, the largest of these areMagpie Creek on the northern side of the gorgeand Spring Creek on the southern side.

HERITAGE SURVEYS

Consultation

A meeting was held prior to the field surveywith Terry Gregory, National Parks andWildlife SA at Belair. Mr Gregory provideda detailed map of the survey area and thenames of local residents to contact. One ofthese contacts was Gordon de Rose whosefamily had previously owned much of the SturtGorge and who had lived in the area for mostof his life.

59

Figure 7.6 GIS map of the Sturt Gorge showing the sites referred to below.SOURCE Robert Keane, GIS consultant, HFZCHP 2005

The Sturt Gorge

Gordon de Rose generously spent a greatdeal of time working with members of theproject team. Two surveys of the gorge wereunder-taken with him to confirm the locationsof sites and he spent time assisting ErinnaDennis with her Cultural HeritageManagement report. Maggy Ragless, MitchamHeritage Research Centre, and staff at the Cityof Onkaparinga were also contacted and thelocal history collections were consulted.

Field survey

On August 4, 2002, a field survey of the SturtGorge was undertaken by fourteen volunteersfrom the Flinders University ArchaeologySociety and staff from the Department ofArchaeology, Flinders University. The surveyteam was led first by Maggy Ragless, MitchamCouncil’s Local Heritage Officer and later, byPam Smith of Flinders University. The surveycommenced at the end of MountbattenAvenue, Bellevue Heights and followed theMagpie Creek valley to the west. At thejunction of Magpie Creek and the Sturt Riverthe team surveyed only the northern side ofthe very steep Sturt Gorge to the end of TheBoulevard.

The volunteers were divided into twoworking groups, with individuals takingresponsibility for photography, site recording,GPS recording, photographic records andcommunications. Initially the two groupssurveyed both sides of the walking track wherepossible. Transects were walked with membersof the survey team spaced at intervals varyingbetween 5 and 10 metres depending onground visibility and terrain. Transects wereonly walked in areas that were accessible andwere not conducted where the vegetation wasimpenetrable or where the terrain was so steepthat members the survey team were at risk.GPS points were established and SiteInformation Proformas (SIPS) were completedat all locations where any form of historicalcultural impact, or suspected impact, hadoccurred and each location was photographed.

Weather: The weather was cool, mildand dry.

Vegetation: The density of the vegetationwas variable and although some areas weredense and difficult, most of the survey areawas accessible.

Terrain: The terrain varied betweenundulating to very steep. The steepest gullieswere ranked as a low priority and were notincluded in the survey.

The objectives of the field survey were to:• undertake a systematic preliminary survey

of the Sturt Gorge in order to identify

evidence of European cultural impacts onthe landscape dating from 1836 to 1936,

• record the locations of cultural impacts byGPS in order to develop a Cultural HeritageGIS database of the HFZ,

• identify themes and cultural sites thatwarrant further research, and

• identify potential cultural tourismdestinations.

Cultural Heritagemanagement reports

Magpie CreekRobert Stone (Flinders University, Departmentof Archeology) surveyed and recorded theMagpie Creek Ruin and completed a CulturalHeritage Management Report for this project.Refer to the report, The Magpie Creek Ruin, thisvolume. (See also Blackwood Reserve, thisvolume).

Sturt GorgeErinna Dennis (Flinders University,Department of Archaeology) researched thehistory of the Sturt Gorge and prepared aCultural Heritage Management report for thisproject. This research included a visit to theArmy Museum at the Keswick Barracks (PaulLongstaff ), library research and interviewswith Mr Bob Searles – a former member of the

Australian Army based in Sturt Gorge duringWorld War II, Phillip Knightly (researchingmilitary history), Mr Ralph Jones (formerManager, CSIRO Glenthorne Research Station)and Janine Kranbourne (National Parks andWildlife Service). Erinna Dennis and PamSmith were taken to many of the sitesdocumented below by Gordon de Rose on 28October 2002. These sites included the mines,the squatters camp, the 1912 sites associatedwith the visit to the gorge by Lord Kitchenerand the World War II sites. Several additionalvisits were made to the gorge to verify the datacollected and to extend the survey of thesouthern side of the gorge.

GIS Mapping

The locations of all sites identified during thefield surveys were recorded by GPS andentered into the Hills Face Zone CulturalHeritage GIS Database (Figure 7.6).


House site andassociated cart track

An area adjacent to Magpie Creek and belowMountbatten Avenue was recorded as a


Figure 7.6 A GIS reconstruction of the Sturt Gorge showing the locations of military sitesdating from 1910 and World War II.

SOURCE ????

Figure 7.8 Wire entanglements on the northern slop of Sturt Gorge, view north.SOURCE HFZCHP 2005

possible habitation site. A flat area had beencut out of the side of the slope to the creek andin the middle of this area a mound had beenformed. The mound contained remnants of anearly building and had been formed byearthmoving equipment. Maggy Raglessrecalled a record of a cottage in this area thathad never been located. A heavy section oftimber was embedded in the ground andappeared to be a doorstep. A large number ofshamrock were growing in the area and it wasobserved by Gwynne Brown, a volunteer, thatit is a Welsh tradition to grow shamrock closeto the front door step to prevent unwantedspirits from entering the house.

This site was associated with a trackleading from Mountbatten Avenue, a shortsection of which appeared to have beenmacadamised and is now used as a walkingtrail. The rest of the track was difficult tofollow and was overgrown with blackberries.

Military sites

The military sites in the Sturt Gorge includethe mock battle of 1910, possible evidence of aWorld War I firing range and a number of sitesdated to World War II. Material evidence ofthe sites described by Gordon de Rose,including the World War II Army base, nolonger remain. As we drove along the edge ofthe Sturt Gorge de Rose was able to identifythe locations of the wireless hut in the formershearing shed (behind 21 Gorelon Drive), themess hut and officer’s quarters (behind 26Gorelon Drive) and the camp site close toBlacks Road. This information was mapped byErinna Dennis and, using GIS technology,Robert Keane was able to reconstruct theWorld War II landscape from this map (Figure7.7).

A reconstruction of the landscape wherethe military exercises of 1910 took place is alsoincluded on this map. This model is based onaltitude was achieved by highlighting (palegrey) those sections of the landscape that werea higher elevation than the tree on the cornerof Botanic Drive and Blacks Road. The mapinterprets the view that Lord Kitchenerhad of the military exercise from the tree,now referred to locally as Kitchener’s Tree.The model also locates the position of theartillery on one of the hill tops adjacent tothe gorge.

Based on the information derived fromthis model and the recorded locations of theshell holes, the artillery would have been onthe higher points and it is unlikely that LordKitchener would have had a good view fromthe tree.

Shell holesEight shell holes were recorded on thenorthern side of the gorge by the survey team.This was is a steep area of the gorge and it ismost likely that there were other shell holesin areas that were inaccessible. Following

a report from a local resident, the southernside of the gorge was later surveyed above theFlood Control dam and further shell holeswere identified scattered over a wide area.These all appeared as depressions in theground and were uniform in size, with a

61

Figure 7.9 Gordon de Rose showing his14lb shell to Erinna Dennis. SturtGorge is in the background, vieweast.

SOURCE HFZCHP 2002

The Sturt Gorge

diameter of between 800 mm and 1200 mm.Differences in soil type would account forthe variations in size. According to Gordonde Rose these depressions were made by the14 lb shells used in the mock battle of 1910.

A number of small circular depressions,with a diameter of between 150 and 200 mmwere noted by Erinna Dennis below theFlinders University Ring Road. The originof these are unknown, but would not havedated from the 1910 exercises. We know thatthe gorge was used as a firing range duringWorld War I and that military defencepositions were located in that area of thegorge during World War II.

Wire entanglements and a trenchRemnants of wire entanglements anda narrow trench were recorded by the surveyteam on the northern side of the Sturt Gorge.These were later identified by Gordon de Roseand Bob Searles as remnants of the World WarII military exercises and were below theBellevue Heights ridge (now Eve Road). Thisarea was described by Searles as the Army’sfall-back position if an attack occurred on thedefense positions to the west. A trench wasalso identified in this area.

Gun emplacementsGordon De Rose described how machineguns had been mounted on the south-facingslopes at the western end of Sturt Gorgeduring World War II. Two small flat areas wereidentified as being where two machine gunshad been located. Bob Searles located an areawhere there were machine gun emplacementson the slope below the present FlindersUniversity Ring Road and two emplacementswere able to be identified. This was the maindefense position described above.

Fences and 19th centurysection boundaries

Several fences possibly dating to the nineteencentury were recorded along the earlier sectionboundaries. The boundary of the BedfordPark sanitorium (now Flinders University) andthe former de Rose property (now the SturtGorge Recreation Park) was marked by a rowof Sugar Gums.

Mines

The two mines described above were inspectedfrom the outside and recorded. Access was notpossible. The two shafts of the unregisteredmid-nineteenth century copper mine areovergrown by olives and bone seed. A mininglease was taken out in the 1960s and the minewas unsuccessfully reworked for a short time.

Squatters hut

Remnants of a small stone and timberstructure were located on the creek line,including a short length of dry stone walling.This was a hut used by a squatter during thedepression (1930s) and, according to Gordonde Rose, he had been regarded as a hermit whohad lived off the land in Sturt Gorge forseveral years. The camp site had been burnt byfires twice during the 1960s and this haddestroyed much of the timber in the structure.

The Watering Reserve

An area known as the Watering Reserve is atthe western end of Sturt Gorge. Here the SturtRiver widens and there is a deep water holethat used to be used to water cattle during thenineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Thearea is notable for the number of largeE. camandulensis growing along the creek.

Quarry

A small stone quarry was recorded. This wasthe source of stone for the house occupied bythe de Rose family and built in the early 1920s.

Brick tank

Close to the north-western boundary and westof the Watering hole is a large brick tank,

partly built into the slope. No furtherinformation about the tank has been located,although Gordon de Rose believes that it datesfrom the 1920s or 1930s and was associatedwith the house on the adjacent Section.

The de Rose house

The location of the de Rose house was notrecorded, but it is behind 29 Gorelon Driveand is a private residence. The original stonework remains in situ, but is now covered by amore recent addition. There used to be a wellin the paddock in front of the house.

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the diversity of archaeologicalevidence within the Sturt Gorge it should beconsidered a significant landscape both for itsnatural and cultural heritage values. At thistime the park has a heritage listing based onlyon features of natural heritage significance.

The cultural heritage of the Sturt Gorgehas been protected by the Hills Face Zonelegislation and the history of the sitesprotected is diverse and fascinating. Projectmembers could not identify any other sites inAustralia with such a diversity of documentedmilitary history spanning the twentiethcentury. There has, however, been virtuallyno recording of the historical archaeologyin the park and there is no reference to thearchaeological sites in the Sturt GorgeNational Parks and Wildlife ManagementPlans. The recent draft management strategyfor the Sturt Gorge Recreation Parkrecommends that the cultural heritagevalues of the park be recorded (Departmentfor Environment and Heritage, South Australia2004). The research documented in thisreport is preliminary, as resources to Armyarchives believed to be in Melbourne werenot available. Project members stronglysupport the recommendations of the draftmanagement strategy and recommend thatarchaeological and archival research into themilitary history be continued and madeavailable to the public.

NOTE

Those who went on the Survey on August 4, 2002,were: Maggie Ragless (Mitcham Heritage ResearchCentre), Ruth Jenkins, Andrea Williams, Tim Ormsby,Lothar Bender, Chris Bender, Bob Stone, Lis Jansson,Stephen Muller, Gwynne Brown, Tracy Treloar, JeffTreloar, Ellen Stuart, Beverley Storey, and Ron Rower.

62 The Mitcham HillsREFERENCES

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REPORT 2

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Callen, J. 2002 Then and Before. Glimpses of the BelairLine in the Age of Steam, 1883-1969. Butterfly Press,Blackwood, South Australia.

Carver, G. 2001 An Examination of IndigenousAustralian Culturally Modified Trees in SouthAustralia. Unpublished Honours thesis,Department of Archaeology, Flinders University,Adelaide.

Commissioners of the National Park. 1908 TheNational Park of South Australia. Commissioners ofthe National Park, Adelaide.

Cordes, Dene D. 1983 The Park at Belair. Vol. 1. TheIsland Press, Kangaroo Island, South Australia.

Department for Environment and Heritage. 2003Belair National Park Management Plan. Departmentfor Environment and Heritage, South Australia,Adelaide.

Foster, R.C., Skinner, J., Tamblyn, P. and Tamblyn,R.N. 2004 Belair National Park Significant TreeRegister. Copy held at Belair National Park.

Lysaght Referee. 14th Edition. Revised 1924. MotorPress of Australia Ltd., Sydney.

Marquis-Kyle, P and Walker, M. 2004 The IllustratedBurra Charter: Good Practice for Heritage Places.Australia ICOMOS, Sydney.

Milner, J. and Brierly, O. 1869 Cruise of HMS Galatea.Allen, London.

Mitcham Council. 1864 Rate Assessment Books.Mitcham City Council, Mitcham, South Australia.

National Parks and Wildlife Service. 1978 OldGovernment House Belair. Department ofEnvironment, Adelaide.

Norman, W.A. 1953 The History of Mitcham. The Cityof Mitcham, Mitcham, South Australia.

Observer, November 8, 1879. Adelaide.

Adelaide Register, January 11, 1882.

Rose, M. 2002 The Belair Park Story. UnpublishedHistorical Archaeology Report, Department ofArchaeology, Flinders University, Adelaide.

Rudduck, P. 1979 General Reserves Trust: BelairRecreation Park, proposed upgrading of the BlueCottage. Unpublished report to National Parks andWildlife Service, South Australia, October 10, 1979.

Sallis, R. 1998 Railways in the Hills. Published byauthor, Adelaide.

Tamblyn, P. 1997 The Government garden andorchard at Belair. History SA, 131:4-6; 132:8-10.

Woods and Forests Department Annual Reports inParliamentary Papers: 1886, no. 63; 1887, no. 31.

Woods and Forests Department. 1986 Belair Nursery1886-1986. Centenary. A brochure. Woods andForests Department, Adelaide.

Archives

Cook, Harriet 1942 Reminiscences of Life on theGovernment Farm 1874-1884, manuscript donatedto Archives Department in 1943. Copy held at OldGovernment House, Belair National Park, Belair,South Australia.

South Australian Railways 1881 Mt Barker andStrathalbyn Railway. South Australian Railways,Adelaide.

South Australian Railways. 1875 Articles ofAgreement. South Australian Railways, Adelaide.

South Australian Railways, Locomotive EngineersDepartment 1883 Memo to Commissioner ofPublic Works. South Australian Railways,Adelaide.

South Australian Railways, Office of the Chief Engineer1931 Condensed profile of the SAR system. SouthAustralian Railways, Adelaide.

63

State Records of South Australia Government RecordsGroups and Series:

GRG 5/5 Stewart Correspondence (Police Records)1852-1859

GRG 24/4 and 24/6 Colonial Secretary’s OfficeCorrespondence 1840-1859

GRG 35/2 and 35/20 Surveyor-General’s OfficeCorrespondence 1877-1892

GRG 38/1 and 38/7 Colonial Architect’s OfficeCorrespondence 1855-1874

GRG 60/1 Minutes of the Commissioners of theNational Park 1892-1920

GRG 60/2 National Park Planting Record 1892-1920

GRG 60/43 Annual Reports of the Commissionersof the National Park 1892-1920

GRS 8501 Old Government House ArchitecturalPlans 1858-1869. (Copies of plans also held inthe Old Government House Collection.)

REPORT 3

Adelaide Observer, 28 July 1883; 20 September 1919.Adelaide.

Advertiser, 16 September 1919; 17 September 1919.

Auhl, Ian 1986 The Story of the Monster Mine – the BurraBurra Mine and its townships 1845-1877.Investigator Press, Adelaide.

Baillie, P.J. 1978 Port Lincoln and District. InvestigatorPress, Adelaide.

British Parliamentary Papers Vol. 7 1842-1844

Butler, R. and Phillips, A. 1989 Register Personal NoticesVol. 1 1836-1859. Published by author, Adelaide.

Casanova, Jack 1992 Fading Footprints – Pioneers, Runsand Settlement of the lower Eyre Peninsula. JackCasanova, Port Lincoln, South Australia.

City of Mitcham 1982 Open Space Survey Report. Cityof Mitcham, Open Space Survey CoordinatingCommittee, Mitcham.

Coxon, H., Playford, J. and Reid R. 1985 BiographicalRegister of the South Australian Parliament 1857-1957.Wakefield Press, Adelaide.

Department of Environment and Planning, NationalParks and Wildlife Service. 1985 DraftManagement Plan of Recreation Parks of theAdelaide Foothills, Sturt Gorge, Shepherds Hill,Windy Point, Greenhill and The Elbow. SouthAustralian Government Printer, Adelaide.

Department of Environment and Planning, NationalParks and Wildlife Service. 1991 Draft ShepherdsHill Recreation Park Management Plan. SouthAustralian Government Printer, Adelaide.

Department of Environment and Land Management.1992 Shepherds Hill Recreation Park ManagementPlan. South Australian Government Printer,Adelaide.

Hamilton, Ian 1978 The Ayliffe Family. Private limitededition of 150 copies. Adelaide.

Hoad J.L. (Bob) 1986 Hotels and Publicans in SouthAustralia 1836-1984. South Australian HotelsAssociation, Adelaide.

Loyau, George E. 1883 (Fac. 1978) The RepresentativeMen of South Australia. George Howell Publishers,Adelaide.

Ragless, Margaret E. 1988 Dust Storms in ChinaTeacups. Investigator Press, Adelaide.

Adelaide Register, 1 April 1852; 5 March 1863.

Robertson, Enid L. 1984 Watiparinga ReserveManagement Plan. National Trust of SouthAustralia, Adelaide.

Robertson, Enid L. 1999 Restoration of GrassyWoodland. Watiparinga Reserve Management Plan.National Trust of South Australia, Adelaide.

South Australian Government Gazette, 25 March 1841; 6August 1891; 28 October 1891; 20 January 1903; 26January 1905; 11 September 2003.

South Australian Parliamentary Papers, 49/1954. SouthAustralian Parliament, Adelaide.

South Australian, 15 October 1844. Adelaide.

Statton, Jill (ed.) 1986 Biographical Index of SouthAustralians 1836-1885. South Australian Genealogyand Heraldry Society, Adelaide.

Archival documents

Central Road Board Contract Books, 1855-1866GRG39/15/Vols, 1, 2, and 4

Central Road Board Register of Letters, GRG39/2/242

Colonial Secretary’s Office GRG24/4 and 6Correspondence 1841-1856, GRG24/6/1854/676;

Insolvency Index and File, No 51-1842, (FrederickMitchell) GRG 66 /1 and 6

Insolvency Index, No 1030, (Thomas Hamilton Ayliffe,contract of Unley, 20 Dec 1861) GRG 66 Vol 1.

Mitcham Council Rate Assessment Books 1853-onwards

National Trust letter ref. C.NPCT DSP/HLT, 1988, toI.M. Ragless

Police Records, Gold Escort Return, 1852, GRG/5/

Police Records to the Coroner 1882-1884 Vol 2 - 24 July1883, GRG1/44/172

Ragless C.H. c 1948, Personal Notes

Ragless F.B. c1930s, Reminiscences and Poetry

Savings Bank of SA Application for Loan 6184

State Records

Surveyor General’s Office GRG 35/2/1891/1260

Lands Department

Certificates of Title (CT) 499/98; 1019/123-124; 1114/111; 209/25; 273/35; 678/120; 82/185;

Deposited Plans 3360, 3570, 3819

Real Property Act Applications 5860, 5664, 7066

SA Women’s Memorial Playing Fields TrustIncorporated SRG255

State Library of South Australia.

Electronic media

South Australian Genealogy and Heraldry Society.South Australian Births 1842-1906, Digger CDs,Adelaide.

South Australian Genealogy and Heraldry Society.South Australian Marriages1842-1916-1932. DiggerCDs, Adelaide.

South Australian Genealogy and Heraldry Society.South Australian Deaths 1842-1915. Digger CDs,Adelaide.

REPORT 4

Bender, Christine 2004 Rock of Ages. Stonyfell Quarry.Unpublished Honours thesis, Department ofArchaeology, Flinders University, Adelaide.

Callen, J. 2002 Then and Before: Glimpses of the BelairLine in the Age of Steam. 1883-1969. Butterfly Press,Blackwood, South Australia.

Deer, D. 1999 City of Mitcham Quarries. Mitcham CityCouncil, Mitcham, South Australia.

Drew, Greg 2000 Sleeps Hill Quarries historic siteMESA Journal 17 34-36 (Copy held by Heritage SA,File 14783).

Jenkins, R 2002 Sleeps Hill Quarry. UnpublishedUndergraduate Cultural Heritage ManagementReport, Department of Archaeology, FlindersUniversity, Adelaide.

Kochergen, Jacob 2003 Belair Reserve (SouthernSection) Maintenance Plan. City of Mitcham.

Sallis, Roger 1998 Railways in the Adelaide Hills.Published by author, Adelaide.

South Australian Primary Industries and Resources2000 Sleeps Hill Quarries: a Guide to the WalkingTrail, Adelaide.

Specht, R.L. 1964 The Vegetation of the Belair NationalPark and Reserves. In Cotton, Bernard C. (ed.)South Australian National Parks and WildlifeReserves. Commissioners of the National Park andWildlife Reserves, Adelaide.

Wells, R. 1995 The Sleeps Hill Quarries. Unpublishedreport to Department of Mines and Energy,Adelaide.

Archives

Boral Archives, State Library of South Australia.

Heritage SA File on Sleeps Hill No. 14783

Letter from the Chief Engineer, South AustralianRailways to Quarry Industries 2 December 1969.Boral Archives, held by the State Archives of SouthAustralia, Adelaide.

Memo of Agreement between SA RailwaysCommissioner and Sleeps Hill Quarries Limited, 20August 1940. Boral Archives, held by the StateArchives of South Australia.

Memo of Agreement between SA RailwaysCommissioner and Adelaide Quarries Ltd. July 191950. Boral Archives, held by the State Archives ofSouth Australia, Adelaide.

Mines and Energy Department n.d. Record of Mines –Summary Card No. 2. Adelaide Quarries No. 2,Adelaide.

Railway Heritage of South Australia. Cutting in theHeritage SA file 14601, Adelaide.

REPORT 5

Berry, D.W. and Gilbert, S.H. 1981 Pioneer BuildingTechniques. Gillingham Printers, Adelaide.

Boyd, R. 1961 Australia’s Home, its Origins, Builders andOccupiers. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.

Burke, H. and Smith, C. 2004 The Archaeologist FieldHandbook, Allen and Unwin, Crowsnest, NewSouth Wales.

Connah, G. 1993 The Archaeology of Australia’s History.Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.


Dolling, A. 1981 The History of Marion on Sturt. GriffinPress, Adelaide.

Gibbs, R.M. 1992 A History of South Australia fromColonial Days to the Present. Southern Heritage,Adelaide.

Morgan, E.J. and Gilbert, S.H. 1969 Early AdelaideArchitecture 1836-1886. Oxford University Press,Oxford.

Morris, K. 1976 Australia’s Heritage Sketch Book. Booksfor Pleasure, Sydney.

Pearson, M. and Sullivan, S. 1999 Looking AfterHeritage Places. Melbourne University Press,Melbourne.

Smith, R. 1978 The Birth of Australia. Rigby, Adelaide.

Stone, D.I. and Garden, D.S. 1982 Squatters andSettlers. Stone Mill Publishers, Melbourne.

Swann, B. 1970 Swann’s South Australia. InvestigatorPress, Adelaide

Watson-Sharp, W. 1983 Australia’s Early Dwellings andChurches. Angus and Robertson, Sydney.

Yelland, E.M. 1970 Colonists, Copper and Corn in theColony of South Australia. The Hawthorn Press,Melbourne.

REPORT 6

Callen, J. 2003 Glimpses of Blackwood: A JourneyThrough Time 1880-1980. Butterfly Press,Blackwood, South Australia.

REPORT 7

Colliver, E.J. and Richardson, D.H. 1920 The Forty-Third: The Story and Official History of the 43rdBattalion A.I.F. Rigby Limited, Adelaide.

Dennis, Erinna 2002 Military history of Sturt Gorge.Unpublished undergraduate Cultural HeritageManagementReport. Department of Archaeology,Flinders University, Adelaide.

Department for Environment and Heritage, SouthAustralia. 2004 Draft Management Plan. SturtGorge Recreation Park (incorporating proposedCraigburn Farm additions). Department forEnvironment and Heritage, Adelaide.

Hawker, J.C. 1899 Early Experiences in South Australia.E.S. Wigg and Son, Adelaide.

Marquis-Kyle, P. and Walker, M. 2004 The IllustratedBurra Charter: Good Practice for Heritage Places.Australia ICOMOS, Sydney.

Martin, R. 1987 Under Mount Lofty: A History of theStirling District. District Council of Stirling,Stirling, South Australia.

National Parks and Wildlife 1985 Draft ManagementPlan, Recreation Parks of the Adelaide Foothills.Department of Environment and Planning,Adelaide.

Scott, E. 1938 Official History of Australia in the War of1914-1918. Vol. XI, Australia During the War. H.J.Green, Government Printer, Melbourne.

historic sites and landscapes the mitcham hills

Documents